Originally appeared at ZeroHedge
The U.S. Navy and the FBI are investigating a massive cyber breach that compromised the network of an unidentified Navy contractor, as Chinese hackers allegedly stole large amounts of data related to undersea warfare, including top-secret programs to develop supersonic anti-ship missiles for submarines by 2020, according to American officials, The Washington Post reported.
The data breach occurred earlier this year as the investigation is still ongoing. The officials said that the contractor was working at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, a full-spectrum research, development, and testing arm of the Navy. The warfare center focuses on submarines, autonomous underwater systems, and offensive and defensive weapons systems associated with undersea warfare.
According to the WaPo, Chinese hackers stole a total of 614 gigabytes of plans for cutting-edge weapons relating to various undersea programs, as well as sensor data, submarine information about cryptographic systems, and an entire library of submarine electronic warfare data.
Since the cyber attack, this has been a nightmare for the Pentagon, as the Navy warned The Washington Post not to release further details about the secret submarine missile program, in their report. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary James Mattis ordered the Pentagon inspector general’s office Friday to investigate the massive data breach.
Bill Speaks, Director of Media Operations for the Navy said, “There are measures in place that require companies to notify the government when a ‘cyber incident’ has occurred that has actual or potential adverse effects on their networks that contain controlled unclassified information.”
Speaks added that “it would be inappropriate to discuss further details at this time.”
During Admiral Philip S. Davidson nomination hearing to lead U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, he mentioned that Beijing could not develop submarine technology on their own — they had to steal it through cyberspace.
“One of the main concerns that we have,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “is cyber and penetration of the dot-com networks, exploiting technology from our defense contractors, in some instances.”
“It’s very disturbing,” said former senator James M. Talent (R-Mo.), who is a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
“But it’s of a piece with what the Chinese have been doing. They are completely focused on getting advanced weapons technology through all kinds of means. That includes stealing secrets from our defense contractors.” Talent had no independent knowledge of the breach.
Without breaching confidentiality, The Washington Post touch on the Sea Dragon project, which was one of the programs the Chinese were able to steal in the hack.
“The Sea Dragon project is an initiative of a special Pentagon office stood up in 2012 to adapt existing U.S. military technologies to new applications. The Defense Department, citing classification levels, has released little information about Sea Dragon other than to say that it will introduce a “disruptive offensive capability” by “integrating an existing weapon system with an existing Navy platform.” The Pentagon has requested or used more than $300 million for the project since late 2015 and has said it plans to start underwater testing by September.”
Western strategist already fear that China has rapidly expanded military capabilities through technological advancements and the militarization of artificial islands in the South China Sea, which could complicate the U.S. Navy’s ability to remain dominant in the East. Such hacks of latest US naval military technology will only make China an even greater competitor in the ongoing arms race between the two superpowers, which as the IMF and the Rand corporation forecast will be won by China some time over the next 2 decades.
The report of a massive military data breach via Chinese hackers comes just as President Trump sits down with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un – who aligns himself with Beijing – in a historical summit in Beijing. How many more hacks will Washington tolerate until President Trump snaps and punishes Beijing with even harsher penalties while sending an even greater US military presence in the South China Sea? As a reminder, NATO recently declared that a major cyber attack on one of its members could be grounds for a declaration of war.
This curve is bullshit. Between 2045 and 2050 china should irreally elevate the budget yearly.
Who knows what a f*king Big, extended, ( even if not some World-) WAR we’ll be and then, all that curves are really BS, as you said.
I shouldn’t be ok with this. But i am.
:)
Yeah!… :) While Trump, Pompeo, BOLTON and the other Israeli-lovers in the USA organize plans after plans how to topple the Iranian Government, … China lets the USA without trousers…
(Too much resources invested in coup d’etats abroad, what, NSA & CIA? No time anymore to take care of your OWN USA..
BTW, an old joke, I guess you know it:
Q: Why in the USA never was a Coup d’Etat ?…
A: Because the USA don’t have an US Embassy in Washington.. ;)
614gb of data is a very large streams of data over the Internet. You’ll never miss such large traffic if the data extracted at once so it’s either leaked overtime or sold by insider. What’s with USA today ? They invented stuxnet that hit the Iranian facilities yet they can’t figured out that the Chinese can hacks them and taken such massive classified data ? What’s their countermeasure against hacking ? Weren’t such classified data only uses closed circuit in it’s distribution ?
Perhaps it’s like many other instances of US military secrets “passing” to China, by who other than Israel?
Like this one and this one from 1993 or this one from 2013
Or perhaps growing idiocy again like the service member that keep their location tracked all the time even after getting posted in undeclared (often illegally) military bases.
The Chinese could have also breached the Indian navies databases, which the U.S., Israel are working with to contain China.
Either way, the Chinese are just getting started. They are a no nonsense people whom are very, very serious and will not be dominated.
Submarine warfare is coming into obscurity , as a small tactical nuclear device detonated underwater near subs would obliterate them.
The Chinese have systems we don’t even know about, but would shock the world. China is winning, their is no stopping that. All logic points to this.
How do you counter hacking?
Piece of cake: Roll out a patch for human stupidity.
You would think that the nation that invented the internet, would be smart enough to secure it?
But no, I would not have believed that an advanced nation could revert to primitives so quickly, if I hadn’t seen it myself.
I doubt they know who stole the data, they just blame China or Russia, every time they do something stupid.
Hahaha sucks!
The unsafers country in the world is USA it’s army is pin Europe and Arab land were their gas and oil interest is.China must hack and tricker missile explosions in All weapon carriers and submarines of USA.That will help Amazon Indians to capture remaining Shithole marines with bow and arrow.Then the oppress black people will matter afterwards.No more black civilian killing in USA.No more cuttlery thrown away which were used by blacks.By white supremacists USA administration .
How does MAGA happen with a continued and increasingly more massive expenditure on bang-bang?
According to the graphic, expenses are only preparing for ‘take-off’ and already they have never been higher.