Recently, the U.S. media revealed that the United States is being attacked by the worst hacker attack in history. On the 17th, the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency, which belongs to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, issued a warning that cyberattacks continue and the risk has reached a “critical” level.
Attacks on the network of federal agencies in the United States
In fact, as early as the 13th local time, the U.S. government admitted that the network of federal agencies had been attacked. The next day, several U.S. media followed up with more details – some computer systems of several federal agencies, such as the U.S. Treasury Department and Commerce, were hacked.
The Wall Street Journal quoted sources as reporting that highly confidential information from U.S. government agencies, defense contractors and other industries has been stolen.
This attack, also characterized as the top cyber espionage operation, has reached the worst level in nature.
Soon, U.S. cyber security officials clarified the attack path of hackers. They found that the attacker captured a software owned by the network management software manufacturer “Sunwind” and implanted malicious code in the update patch.
The well-known software company has 300,000 users worldwide, including the U.S. Department of State, the Department of Defense and other federal agencies. As soon as the reason was found, the U.S. government took urgent measures.
The National Security Assistant of the United States suddenly interrupted his visit and returned home.
However, the American media is keen to find that the hacking incident seems to be more serious than what the U.S. government has announced.
Because on the 15th, O’Brien, the assistant national security affairs of the United States, suddenly interrupted his visit to Europe and flew back to Washington from Paris to take the lead in solving the problem.
According to the original plan, he would have stayed in Europe until the 19th.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security: The target of the attack is nuclear arsenals
Sure enough, on the 18th, the U.S. media once again exposed the news.
The relevant person in charge of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security claimed that there were signs that the attack was aimed at the U.S. nuclear arsenal. U.S. media quoted a security official as saying
“This seems to be the worst hacker case in American history”.
Hackers have hacked into the National Nuclear Security Administration network.
The evidence available to the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Safety Administration indicates that hackers have invaded their networks. Among them, even the network of Los Alamos National Laboratory has found suspicious activities.
The laboratory was the first national laboratory in the United States to participate in the design and development of nuclear weapons. It began to operate secretly in the early 1940s.
At that time, its first mission was the famous Manhattan Project. Today, it is still one of the most important nuclear weapons laboratories in the United States.
Suspicious activities found in the network of important nuclear weapons laboratories in the United States
According to Reuters, so far, at least six federal agencies in the United States have been affected by hacking, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Commerce, the Treasury Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration of the Department of Energy.
Expert analysis: If the United States’ confidential institutions are “hacked”, it means that the network security situation is serious.
Although the investigation into the hacking incident is still ongoing and the relevant departments have not reached a conclusion, some politicians and media in the United States have begun to publicly accuse Russia of launching the hacker attack.
In response, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said, “No allegations have been received that Russia is behind the recent cyberattack. Some Western countries have chosen to directly accuse Russia in this way through the media, indicating that these countries lack moral standards and diplomatic skills.”
The Russian media hit back at the U.S. media with reports, saying that the U.S. nuclear weapons crisis is most likely to be caused by internal reasons, because they have learned from the past.
Russian satellite network quoted a revelation in the U.S. Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that during the Cuban missile crisis in the 1960s, the United States almost triggered a nuclear war due to the wrong password.
The incident happened on October 28, 1962, at four secret U.S. missile bases stationed on Okinawa Island, Japan, when the United States and the Soviet Union were facing each other.
the same day, a launch manager named William Bassett received orders to launch nuclear missiles at the Soviet Union, North Korea and Vietnam. Launch administrators at the remaining three bases also received orders.
In the target list, Bassett noticed that only the Soviet Union was the most likely target of a nuclear strike by the United States at that time. None of the other attack targets are.
In addition, the level of combat readiness at that time did not rise to the level of combat readiness, that is, the level of “inevitable nuclear war”. All this made Bassett doubt the authenticity of the order.
Eventually, after repeated information confirmation, the control center ordered the cancellation of the launch. This is a misinformation order accident.
