Lockheed Martin, one of the world's largest defense contractors, was hit hard by hackers this week who used falsified Secure ID electronic tokens to acquire access. The offence threatens the security of critical data on present and future military technology.
Which, you know, blows for us and our allies abroad who depend on Lockheed to help keep us safe during the ongoing war on terror in places like Iraq and Afghanistan?
It isn't clear what, if anything was stolen during the offence. It isn't even clear what the hackers want, but the attacks are being traced back to a hacking campaign back in March on the RSA Security arm of the EMC Corporation, a selective information storage firm. That one attack compromised the security system of anyone using the RSA technology-which means most Fortune 500 companies, other military contractors, and even the Pentagon. Most of these companies have since taken action to address the security issues inbuilt here, but as Rick Moy, president of NSS Labs, told Reuters, "Given the military targets, and that millions of compromised keys are in circulation, this is not over."
Lockheed remains sure-footed that their broader security systems already in place will have served to prevent or at least soften the blow from this rupture. RSA, however, is at a crossroads. The fallout from this will likely result in newer, more secure, but more expensive technologies being relied upon in the future to prevent this from taking place again.
Which, you know, blows for us and our allies abroad who depend on Lockheed to help keep us safe during the ongoing war on terror in places like Iraq and Afghanistan?It isn't clear what, if anything was stolen during the offence. It isn't even clear what the hackers want, but the attacks are being traced back to a hacking campaign back in March on the RSA Security arm of the EMC Corporation, a selective information storage firm. That one attack compromised the security system of anyone using the RSA technology-which means most Fortune 500 companies, other military contractors, and even the Pentagon. Most of these companies have since taken action to address the security issues inbuilt here, but as Rick Moy, president of NSS Labs, told Reuters, "Given the military targets, and that millions of compromised keys are in circulation, this is not over."
Lockheed remains sure-footed that their broader security systems already in place will have served to prevent or at least soften the blow from this rupture. RSA, however, is at a crossroads. The fallout from this will likely result in newer, more secure, but more expensive technologies being relied upon in the future to prevent this from taking place again.
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