U.S. Defense Contractors Besieged by Cyber TheftJune 03, 2011
 Leading American defense and aerospace companies have had their industrial research and designs siphoned off through attacks on their computer networks. The Defense Department now confirms that more than 100 foreign intelligence agencies have been trying to break into U.S. networks, according to a Reuters report. “This has been happening since the late 90s,” Joel Brenner, the national counterintelligence executive from 2006 through 2009, told Reuters. “They are after our weapons systems and R&D.” Most of the attacks have come from Russia, China and Iran, and most of the big defense contractor networks have been probed or penetrated. “The scale of compromise, including the loss of sensitive and unclassified data, is staggering,” James Miller, the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, said last May. Just this past weekend, Lockheed Martin, the largest U.S. defense contractor, said that it had countered “a significant and tenacious” attack on its information systems. The attack was detected on May 21. The troubling incident is compounded by the fact that Lockheed is also the government's top information technology provider. Reuters said that the Lockheed spokeswoman noted the company has become “a frequent target of adversaries from around the world.” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, who was on the Senate intelligence committee cyber task force last year, said that cyber crime has put the country “on the losing end of what could be the largest illicit transfer of wealth in the world,” Reuters reported. A former senior scientist at the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, said that since January there have been ongoing intrusions into U.S. networks belonging to defense contractors, security companies and government labs, Reuters reported. |
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