Chinese Hackers Hit the Motherlode

[Patticus]

Chinese Hackers Stole Plans For Dozens Of Critical US Weapons Systems

Hackers have accessed designs for more than two dozen major U.S. weapons systems, according to a devastating classified report a Pentagon advisor shared with the Washington Post.

 

Although the report from the Defense Science Board did not identify the hackers, senior military and industry officials with knowledge of the breaches say they come primarily from China, according to Ellen Nakashima of the Post.

 

"This is billions of dollars of combat advantage for China. They've just saved themselves 25 years of research and development. It's nuts," a senior official told the Post.

 

A public version of the report released in January warned of an "existential cyber attack" with "potentially spectacular" effects.

 

A partial list of compromised designs include the F-35 fifth generation fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, THAAD missile defense, Patriot missile defense, AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, the Global Hawk high altitude surveillance drone. Hackers also accessed Personally Identifiable Information, including vast quantities of military email addresses, SSN, credit card numbers, and passwords.

 

“That’s staggering,” Mark Stokes, executive director of the Project 2049 Institute, a think tank that focuses on Asia security issues, told the Washington Post. “These are all very critical weapons systems, critical to our national security. When I hear this in totality, it’s breathtaking.”

 

Even with the plans, it's not clear how well China can reproduce U.S. weapons technology. China's defense industry is plagued by corruption and projects that run over cost, require frequent modification, and often rely on second-hand Russian technology. But they're trying: a big part of the big haul was schematics for small parts needed to set up manufacturing for these weapons systems.

 

What this means for the U.S. is a potentially critical vulnerability to hackers down to the level of individual weapons. As the Defense Science Board warned in January:

 

The benefits to an attacker using cyber exploits are potentially spectacular. Should the United States find itself in a full-scale conflict with a peer adversary, attacks would be expected to include denial of service, data corruption, supply chain corruption, traitorous insiders, kinetic and related non-kinetic attacks at all altitudes from underwater to space. U.S. guns, missiles, and bombs may not fire, or may be directed against our own troops. Resupply, including food, water, ammunition, and fuel may not arrive when or where needed. Military Commanders may rapidly lose trust in the information and ability to control U.S. systems and forces. Once lost, that trust is very difficult to regain.

 

Chinese hackers could theoretically infiltrate the cryptographic intranet communications systems of an F-35 and render it essentially inoperable.

 

That's why the report advises the Pentagon to invest heavily in cyber security.

 

China apparently uses several different means to gain access to these defense systems, most of them utilizing what Information Security experts call "human engineering" — when manipulative emails or clever online con-men actually get victims to divulge information on their own.

 

From Quartz:

 

[One more convincing tactic is executed] by creating innocuous-looking companies and research institutes that reach out to US companies, researchers and universities under the guise of civilian cooperation, only to steal their technology and experts for use by the PLA.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/china-hacked-us-military-weapons-systems-2013-5#ixzz2UnPdqr8o

 

Well shit, that's an awful lot of gear China can now get to work on replicating, and in the process pose an ever greater threat to the American military presence in the region. If they give this stuff to North Korea to shore up their defenses... damn.

[PSI Wind]

Well, hopefully the US will up its security in terms of hackers.

.........Oh, who am I kidding.

[Patticus]

It's too late for that really, the damage is done. Besides, even if it does up its security, the hackers are always going to be on its tail.

[PSI Wind]

Yeah, I know. I just find it hilarious on how horrible our web security in the government is.

[Ferno]

So... we're pretty screwed aren't we?

 

Unless we have some super ultra awesome extra secret tech that's 25 years more advanced than the modern day stuff we're aware of.

Edited May 30, 2013 by Inferno

[PSI Wind]

So... we're pretty screwed aren't we?

 

Unless we have some super ultra awesome extra secret tech that's 25 years more advanced than modern day stuff we're aware of.

Well, they might have the plans to do it, but do they have the resources? The scientists to build it? A plans a plan unless you have someone who can make it a reality. And I REALLY doubt China would invade/attack us. I mean, we're pretty much their #1 source of money.

[Ferno]

Well, they might have the plans to do it, but do they have the resources? The scientists to build it? A plans a plan unless you have someone who can make it a reality. And I REALLY doubt China would invade/attack us. I mean, we're pretty much their #1 source of money.

 

Hysterical feelings gone...mostly.

[Patticus]

Well, they might have the plans to do it, but do they have the resources? The scientists to build it? A plans a plan unless you have someone who can make it a reality. And I REALLY doubt China would invade/attack us. I mean, we're pretty much their #1 source of money.

 

They almost certainly have the resources required; they're sitting on a huge reserve of rare earth minerals, and they probably have a boatload of other resources just sitting in their big ass country as well. And as the article says...

 

Even with the plans, it's not clear how well China can reproduce U.S. weapons technology. China's defense industry is plagued by corruption and projects that run over cost, require frequent modification, and often rely on second-hand Russian technology. But they're trying: a big part of the big haul was schematics for small parts needed to set up manufacturing for these weapons systems.

They've essentially been given a guidebook to creating their own versions of these weapons systems. It may not be the complete picture they need, but the amount of time it'll take for them to develop counters to America's weapons, to get around its stealth and defensive systems, has been cut short by a huge amount.

[Johnny Boy]

So, who's willing to bet China's gonna hand these plans over to North Korea?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I read about this on the Washington Post. Damn you Pat! I was gonna post this!

 

At any rate, I think this should be a wake-up call that the US needs to step up on it's cyberwarfare, because THAT's a weakspot that China seems to be exploiting. We're all about military hardware, but when someone decides to use the software against us we end up getting crippled. We need to start countering this, because that'll lead to advances in hardware for them to gain when they steal our plans.

 

China can talk all it wants about how it doesn't condone these actions, but they're not fooling anyone here. They've been trying less to match us tech-for-tech and looking for other means to make it difficult for our military. No supercarriers? We'll just make a carrier-killer. Our military using outdated equipment? We'll just hack your shit and catch up.

 

I say we need to get some hackers of our own and do some counter-cyberwarfare against this stuff. I know we're already on it given our own cyberwarfare division, but we need to go even further than that if this says anything.

 

So, who's willing to bet China's gonna hand these plans over to North Korea?

With North Korea acting like a brat, no they won't. And even if they did, they'll take even LONGER to make them than you would think.

 

Exactly how many rocket launches did it take for them to send their first satelite in to space?

Edited May 30, 2013 by ChaosSupremeSonîc

[Badnik Mechanic]

So... we're pretty screwed aren't we?

 

Think of it this way. Now you can go to China and buy an F-35 for virtually10% of the actual cost, the only downside is that it might break down after a few uses and it won't connect to iTunes.

 

But joking aside, It's not like the United States hasn't tries to counter this. Theres even an episode of Qi where Stephen Fry says he went to the Pentagon on a visit and he was told that the United States was under constant attack from cyber warfare, and that the nation in question sounded something like "ina."

[Stacy]

So, who's willing to bet China's gonna hand these plans over to North Korea?

 

I doubt it especially seeing as the trouble they given China during the Crisis in March the last thing they want is to give North Korea the means to piss every one off again.

 

North Korea is largely on its own though we know they get support from Iran. 

 

China has really reigned North Korea in recently they still won't give up their nuclear capability though.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Question: wouldn't one way to prevent hacks be to create isolated databases that can't be accessed by the internet and can only be used by the buildings where sensitive plans were being developed? Or is our interconnected network too essential for that?

[Tornado]

And then China had to spend 10 years and a hundred billion dollars attempting to make the F-35 less of a piece of shit; meanwhile the US decides to rely on the F-22 instead.

 

 

 

So, who's willing to bet China's gonna hand these plans over to North Korea?

 

How much of the latest and greatest military technology did the Soviet Union give to its satellite countries? The answer is "Maybe half of it if you were one they really liked, 20 years after the fact."

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

And then China had to spend 10 years and a hundred billion dollars attempting to make the F-35 less of a piece of shit; meanwhile the US decides to rely on the F-22 instead.

Now THAT...would absolutely be hilarious.

 

Maybe there's a silver lining in the US deciding to focus on the F-35, because haven't they said that they didn't want details of the F-22 to be obtained by adversaries in an event just like this one? Hence why they didn't sell it to other nations, and why they cut the numbers of Raptors that they wanted?

[nuckles87]

....can the US military stop relying on Microsoft Windows, now?

[Tornado]

They cut numbers on the Raptor because the F-35 was supposed to cost half as much while being able to adapt to more roles with theoretically very close performance in air superiority. They basically didn't see the point of building more to do a role of questionable value; though the export ban was because we didn't want anything to get out.

 

 

 

Then it became clear soon after they shuttered Raptor production that none of those things were actually going to happen for the F-35, but they keep moving the goalposts for what they think it can be usable for (at one point they even had the genius plan that they could replace the A-10 with it) as they throw more and more money down the pit at the thing and the performance gets worse and worse. Now it's an air-superiority fighter with slightly lower maintenance costs, higher unit costs and much worse actual performance than the F-22 (at a time when the F-15E and F/A18-E are still better than nearly everything else); a Harrier replacement with pretty much the same performance that costs 7 times as much; an F16 replacement that would only theoretically work as well at dropping bombs that costs 10 times as much, an A10 replacement that performs laughably worse at close ground attack and costs 20 times as much,

As it stands now, the F-35 is so out of control and behind schedule that the US government has already told Lockheed to go fuck themselves and opened it up to other companies to fix, and have said very publicly that the entire program is on its last chance; and most countries (especially Japan) still just want the F-22 and the older US fighters rather than the F-35. If China wants to fuck around with it for a few years, they can go right ahead; but with as much that the US military treats the Chinese as a boogeyman, they probably wouldn't gain that much from it when they have their own 5th generation fighter in the works.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Right, so pretty much all about the money. I take it they were trying to balance the military budget with all their efforts and failed miraculously? I recall you telling me about them planing to use the F-35 to replace the A-10 Warthog, and considering how durable the A-10 is by comparison to most other planes out their...yeah, that doesn't sound smart on that factor alone, to me at least.

 

 If China wants to fuck around with it for a few years, they can go right ahead; but with as much that the US military treats the Chinese as a boogeyman, they probably wouldn't gain that much from it when they have their own 5th generation fighter in the works.

I'd still find it hilarious that they'd hack and steal plans for what's basically a piece of crap anyway. That's kinda why I found this a silver lining if they plan to use it to compete and counter it.

[iDEATH]

This is pretty scary.....

 

This  was bound to happen eventually though. Like Hogfather said, Stephen Fry made a documentary in america and  went to a military facility and was told that China attempt to hack them constantly. They combat thousands  of attempts a day...one was bound to get through.

Doesn't make it any less frightening of course...

[Tani Coyote]

Fortunately China's industrial base is too poor to make any real use of this information. On the other hand they could probably sell bits and pieces of it to various countries for large sums of cash.

 

Though really this just illustrates the need for better security. Now if only our government didn't have its hydra-esque heads up its vast posterior, we could actually get on this. I know privatisation of defense is often a bad idea, but at times I really wonder how different things would be if a bunch of moronic bureaucrats couldn't stall things with their politics.

[Solkia]

Does this mean I can buy fighter jets on eBay now?

[Tani Coyote]

Does this mean I can buy fighter jets on eBay now?

 

I know this is facetious but if enough development happened this would be theoretically possible.

 

Fortunately resources are far too scarce to allow such things to become as common as computers did.

 

...at least I hope.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Does this mean I can buy fighter jets on eBay now?

Sure...just don't count on it staying a fighter jet for too long...

[Mogtaki]

Sure...just don't count on it staying a fighter jet for too long...

 

You mean it'll turn into Starscream??

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

You mean it'll turn into Starscream??

If by "Starscream" you mean "pieces" then yes.