An Analysis Of How Hackers Penetrated The US Pentagon

We love a good caper story as much as the next mystery fan, and this perky after-crime report is a good look at cyber-security matters and how they fail. In How Hackers Stole 24,000 Files From The Pentagon, the breach is traced to some very obvious methods.

Briefly, they slapped together a bogus PDF document that got sent at about 7:30AM “because the best time to send those types of things is right before someone’s had their coffee.” See, right there, it’s the human factor, not tech. Victim opens document, document installs malware, target system has 24,000 documents on file because they subcontract for the US Department of Defense, and that’s that, it’s break time.

It also goes to show just how little progress we’ve actually made at information security. As long as we have the concept of a zero-day exploit, we’ll still have computer networks that aren’t any more secure than a cardboard box, no matter how many clever measures we take.

Some of the Biggest Names Behind Linux

Some clients, upon encountering Linux web hosting, tend to remark that they’re surprised to see a big company running Linux.

Being a Free/Open Source Software system, people get the idea that it’s all done by volunteers. Right away they picture some hippies in sandals and tie-dye shirts, flashing peace signs and saying how they’re going to “stick it to the man.”

This is a ludicrous idea, because in fact, Linux *IS* “the man!” Linux’s desktop market share is still in the low single digits as far as end users are concerned. The place where Linux has won is the enterprise (as well as content management systems). See if you recognize any of these corporations:

IBM
Has long been involved with Linux. They host the IBM Linux Technology Center, install Linux on many consumer and office machines that they sell, have partnered with Linux brand names such as Canonical (makers of Ubuntu), and routinely install Linux on their mainframe computer line. The current top of their line in mainframes, the IBM zSeries 800, sports a Tux sticker on every unit sold.

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