Reporting from Washington -- Senior military leaders took the exceptional step of briefing President Bush this week on a severe and widespread electronic attack on Defense Department computers that may have originated in Russia -- an incursion that posed unusual concern among commanders and raised potential implications for national security.

Defense officials would not describe the extent of damage inflicted on military networks. But they said that the attack struck hard at networks within U.S. Central Command, the headquarters that oversees U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and affected computers in combat zones. The attack also penetrated at least one highly protected classified network.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military

1. Br. Michael wrote: Well, China is working on this capability too. November 29, 4:18 pm | [comment link]

2. CandB wrote: My company, a large, top-500 defense contractor, gets over 10,000 attacks a day, many from China.  They are seeking any information they can get about military vehilces and weapon systems.  Our internet security office says they have hundreds, possibly thousands, of hackers the payroll and pay bonuses for information actually retrived.  This is true, as I was formerly manager of an IT function and was briefed on this.  Our company spends millions of taxpayer dollars every year to maintain security over electronic data.  Multiply this by the thousands of US companies who must do the same. November 29, 4:59 pm | [comment link]

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