This time it wasn’t Gary McKinnon who hacked into a supposedly secure computer systen within the Pentagon. McKinnon, the pot-smoking British hacker who claimed to find evidence of aliens, as well as hackers from many other countries, when he hacked into the Pentagon’s computer system in 2001 and 2002, was apprehended and has been in custody since 2005.
No, this time the hacker is yet unknown (or, at least, yet unindentified), but he (or she) caused the Pentagon to take as many as 1500 computers in the offices of the Office of the Secretary of Defense offline.
Said US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, “A variety of precautionary measures are being taken. We expect the systems to be online again very soon,” adding that “We obviously have redundant systems in place, and there is no anticipated adverse impact on ongoing operations. There will be some administrative disruptions and personal inconveniences. It will come as no surprise that we aggressively monitor intrusions and have appropriate procedures to address events of this kind.”
Given that this is the second such event within five years, one has to wonder just exactly what these procedures are. What are they doing to prevent them? Or do they just “aggressively monitor” them?
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