24000 FILES STOLEN IN CYBER ATTACK

A top official of the defense department of the Pentagon has revealed that a foreign intelligence service swiped 24,000 computer files from a US defense contractor in March in one of the largest ever cyber attacks on a Pentagon supplier.

Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn said that it was a significant concern that over the past decade, terabytes of data had been extracted by foreign intruders from corporate networks of defense companies.

In a speech at the National Defense University in USA, Lynn said – in a single intrusion this March, 24,000 files were stolen.

Official sources reveal that the whole data was related to systems which were being developed for the Department of Defense.

Over the past few years China has been blamed for a number of probes into US corporate and military computer systems but Lynn declined to point any finger towards any specific suspect for the March intrusion.

Lynn briefed that a great deal of the data stolen, which is approximated to be in many terabytes, included most sensitive systems, including aircraft avionics, surveillance technologies, satellite communications systems and network security protocols.

In the 21st Century, bits and bytes can be as threatening as bullets and bombs, he said. Keystrokes originating in one country can impact the other side of the globe at the blink of an eye.

24000 FILES STOLEN IN CYBER ATTACK

REPORT BY-BIKRAM SINGH RANA