A serious security incident at the Pentagon?

According to press reports, one of the U.S. Department of Defense's IT systems responsible for managing the most costly project has been attacked.

According to The Wall Street Journal, one of the critical systems of the U.S. Department of Defense has been attacked, putting extremely valuable data at risk. The computers involved in the incident belong to the so-called Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) project, which has a budget of no less than $ 300 billion.

Press reports released so far revealed that the attackers had managed to steal various files containing confidential information and gained access to the F-35 Lightning II’s plans as well as data from its electronic system. At the same time, it was outlined that the most critical information could not be accessed, as it was found on systems that were not connected to the Internet. Thus, it is believed that the data related to air traffic control and the various sensors did not fall into the wrong hands. Intruders had access to the system responsible for diagnosing in-flight problems with the F-35 Lightning II. Nevertheless, if the news is confirmed, the unknown perpetrators may have gained information that could make it easier to defend against this aircraft.

There have, of course, been a lot of questions since the article in The Wall Street Journal, but answers have yet to be found. The Pentagon officials have not yet wanted to comment on the incident, although they have not denied its occurrence. Thus, for example, it is not possible to know who broke up the Pentagon system and for what purpose. In this regard, many began to suspect China. The Far Eastern state has firmly denied that it had anything to do with the security incident. It is also unclear how the affected computers were compromised, why the JSF system was available from the World Wide Web, and how much data was lost during the incident. According to some information, it can be as much as several terabytes of data, which raises the question of whether the data has been leaked over the Internet at all. Many believe that such an attack also required internal help. Another important question is, for example, whether confidential information that has fallen into unauthorized hands is protected by encryption.

In recent months, several IT security incidents of similar volume have been heard in the United States. These included an incident involving the Air Force’s air traffic control system and a case of spyware infiltrating the U.S. energy supply system and other similar infrastructures.