Marine Corps Headquarters at Pentagon hit by computer virus

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9910/22/marines.worm.01/

Marine Corps'computer technicians were at work overnight Friday, improving security, after the Corps' headquarters at the Pentagon was hit by a "worm virus," a Marine Corps source told CNN.

The Thursday afternoon attack infiltrated only "unclassified" computer systems, according to the source, and affected Microsoft programs only. Computer systems containing sensitive or "classified" information were not affected, he said.

The Marine Corps' computer warriors were working with computer experts from the Norton Corperation to defeat the virus and retrieve lost files.

Virus left blank pages The attack left Marines around the Pentagon looking at blank pages where documents had once resided. Norton installed anti-virus programs for the Marines.

While the military is a popular target for computer hackers, the Marine Corps official told CNN that Thursday's attack was from "a different strain or a virus we have not seen before."

"You went into your files and they were all empty," he said.

Only computers at the Pentagon and the nearby Navy Annex to the Pentagon were infected by the virus, the official said.

The Pentagon has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the last several years bolstering computer security, to combat attacks on computer systems from international foes, companies and domestic computer hackers.

The Marine Corps official said it was not clear how the virus entered its system.

##############

Let the cyberterrorist games begin.

-- gone (ste@l.th), October 22, 1999

Answers

Ah yes, Microsucks. The epitome of "featuritis" bloated and buggy software. Is it secure? No. Is it reliable? No. BUT IT'S COOL! :-)

-- A (A@AisA.com), October 22, 1999.

I've seen a number of these stories in the last couple of years. I have noticed that the cyber-crooks NEVER (supposedly) make into classified/critical/sensitive systems. It's ALWAYS non classified systems.

Yeah.

MFU

-- Man From Uncle 1999 (mfu1999@hotmail.com), October 22, 1999.


"The Pentagon has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the last several years bolstering computer security,..."

Wonder which one of our 'friendly' neighbor countries got THIS money ????

-- BH (silentvoice@pobox.com), October 22, 1999.


Y2K Reporting Database: Marine Corps Year 2000 Reporting Requirements Database
http://year2000.cio.usmc.mil/year2000/frames/dbmain.htm ===> Y2K Reporting Database

-- (y2k@ready.or.not), October 22, 1999.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ