Fed says internal site breached by hackers, no critical functions affected

As you read this article think about these words in the 1999 book by the two PLA Colonels call Unrestricted Warfare:

War in the age of technological integration and globalization has eliminated the right of weapons

to label war and, with regard to the new starting point, has realigned the relationship of weapons

to war, while the appearance of weapons of new concepts, and particularly new concepts of

weapons, has gradually blurred the face of war. Does a single "hacker" attack count as a hostile

act or not? Can using financial instruments to destroy a country's economy be seen as a battle?

Did CNN's broadcast of an exposed corpse of a U.S. soldier in the streets of Mogadishu shake

the determination of the Americans to act as the world's policeman, thereby altering the world's

strategic situation? And should an assessment of wartime actions look at the means or the

results? Obviously, proceeding with the traditional definition of war in mind, there is no longer

any way to answer the above questions. When we suddenly realize that all these non-war actions

may be the new factors constituting future warfare, we have to come up with a new name for this

new form of war: Warfare which transcends all boundaries and limits, in short: unrestricted

warfare. (p.12)

I know this book has been debunked over the years but many of the concepts continue to show up either by coincidence or deliberately.  Regardless of what one thinks of the book it was very prescient.  In 1999 they were asking a question about single hacker attack being a hostile act or not and in 2013 we are seem to just now be trying to figure that out.

V/R

Dave

Fed says internal site breached by hackers, no critical functions affected

Tue, Feb 05 20:06 PM EST

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE91501920130206?irpc=932

By Alister Bull

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve said on Tuesday that one of its internal websites had been briefly breached by hackers, though no critical functions of the central bank were affected by the intrusion.

The admission, which raises questions about cyber security at the Fed, follows a claim that hackers linked to the activist group Anonymous had struck the Fed on Sunday, accessing personal information of more than 4,000 U.S. bank executives, which it published on the Web.

"The Federal Reserve system is aware that information was obtained by exploiting a temporary vulnerability in a website vendor product," a Fed spokeswoman said.

"Exposure was fixed shortly after discovery and is no longer an issue. This incident did not affect critical operations of the Federal Reserve system," the spokeswoman said, adding that all individuals effected by the breach had been contacted.

Technology news site ZDNet separately reported that Anonymous appeared to have published information allegedly containing the login information, credentials, internet protocol addresses and contact information of over 4,000 U.S. bankers on Sunday night.

The claim was made via Twitter over an account registered to OpLastResort, which is linked to Anonymous, a loosely organized group of hacker activists who have claimed responsibility for scores of attacks on government and corporate sites over the past several years.

OpLastResort is a campaign that some hackers linked to Anonymous have started to protest government prosecution of computer prodigy Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide on January 11.

The Fed declined to identify which website had been hacked. But information that it provided to bankers indicated that the site, which was not public, was a contact database for banks to use during a natural disaster.

(Continued at the link below)

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE91501920130206?irpc=932