Chinese Government Allegedly Attacks White House Computers

There is an unconfirmed report that a hacker in China tried to invade the White House computer system.

There is no evidence that the Chinese government was involved.

It turns out that these attacks are business as usual.

“This was a spear phishing attack against an unclassified network,” a White House spokesperson told SecurityWeek. “These types of attacks are not infrequent and we have mitigation measures in place.”

And according to the White House, while the attackers may have found an entry point into a sensitive network, the attack was identified and stopped quickly.

It turns out that such attacks happen every day.

You can put out a “no Trespassing” sign, but if there is no “Beware of Dog” sign, habitual trespassers need not care.

When the trespasser is 10,000 miles away, what can anyone do about it, other than tighten security.

It’s like target practice.Each side tries to do better. The competition will go one forever.

The NSA spies on Americans who have phone calls to foreigners. There is no hue and cry domestically about the NSA’s invasion of foreigners’ privacy. Americans don’t care about foreigners’ privacy.

Similarly, foreign hackers don’t care about Americans’ privacy. It’s all part of the Big Game.

The White House stonewalled on the question of the breach of security.

It did not lodge a formal protest against China.

An unnamed source says that the attack was linked to China. Further, he went further to say specifically that it was likely the work of “Chinese military cyber warfare specialists under the direction of a unit called the 4th Department of General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army, or 4PLA.”

It sounds to me like this guy is a leaker. Why is he leaking? Why is he not under surveillance? Why hasn’t the government locked him up?

Could it be that he was part of Obama’s orchestration of an executive order to allow government control over the Web?

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano today said the Obama administration is getting closer to issuing an executive order on cybersecurity following the failure of Congress to pass legislation on the issue earlier this year.

Napolitano said that while the president has not reviewed the draft himself, the draft executive order has been circulating among the national security community. . . .

According to officials the executive order will direct the government and critical infrastructure sectors such as water, power and other critical facilities and services to develop voluntary guidelines. It is unclear what the executive order would mean for private sector companies or if they would be required to follow guidance in the order.

“What we’re talking about is a very viable and vital partnership between the public and private sectors, where there’s real-time information sharing and where there’s the employment of best practices and the best technologies available,” Napolitano said. “So I don’t view this is as the government coming in and telling you what to do. Far from it. What we’re saying is, look, if you are the owner and operator of core critical infrastructure on which other businesses depend and families depend and communities depend, we need to make sure that your cyber networks are as secure as possible and that should you be detecting signs of malware or intrusion and the like, there is real-time information sharing so we can help mitigate the threat.”

Whenever we hear about a partnership between the government and the private sector, think “fascism.”

Continue Reading on www.securityweek.com