New U.S. Weapons Systems Are a Hackers’ Bonanza, Investigators Find

I am more than convinced that the Grifter-in_Chief will blame the on Obama, gosh maybe even George W. Bush. Don't these systems cost trillions and take years to develop? Gosh, Mybe Bill Clinton. End this madness. Enough.

Well.. what do you want for 1.6 trillion. We need to dramatically increase pentagon spending. Nothing guarantees excellence in design and manufacturing like unlimited government contracts.

Ahh, not to worry with Trump in charge, a guy who will get to the bottom of it and fix it. Or rather, a guy completely indifferent to whether something is, in itself, true or false. But that doesn't mean he'll tell the truth half the time, because he thinks a lie is much more often useful to him. He's not going to research anything to find out the truth, but if you tell him something that is almost certainly true, he'll reject it out of instinct. You might feel okay asking him for the time of day -- but if he bothered to look at his watch to tell you, he would probably lie about it thinking there could be something in it for himself he just hadn't quite figured out. He's quite used to doing that; it's automatic. If he didn't want to bother looking at his watch, he would make up a time he knew was way off for the same reason. If he were only constantly lying, that would be one thing. But as president, he's acting on his lies and has many followers -- and that should horrify all of us.

“Intrusion detection systems correctly identified test team activities,” the report said. But, it added, the system “was always ‘red’” and “warnings were so common that operators were desensitized to them.” the desensitization is a human condition and is markedly evident in every persons daily life if they chose to notice it. it is also the tactic of trump and his ilk. The more times something is said, done or made a big deal about, the less reaction the public has. It is also called the 'boy who cried wolf' syndrome. People stop believing the danger is real after so many repeated events where they did do the right thing.

The government's procurement methods include awarding contracts to the lowest priced competent bidder. Former Pentagon computer systems officer here. Do we have any question regarding the contract award processes? The selection of software presumes that the winning bidder will provide software that is safe from being hacked, that the bidder in effect has software designers that are more expert than all the hackers who might want to hack the system. What is the probability that the software is like that? A secure system would need defense in depth, several layers of security to penetrate in a definite pattern.

It still boggles the mind to see tax-payers being soaked by politicians for bigger military budgets when what we really need are a few good computer geeks to run a fully-funded cyber unit. Building more high-tech weaponry is unnecessary and the only people who profit from that are the military contractors and the Pentagon. We have enough jets and ships and bombs to destroy the world a thousand times over. Now we need talented people who can protect us from a future of cyber warfare: to protect our energy and communications infrastructure from the kind of attacks that we experienced in the last few years and to protect the high-tech weapons systems we've already blown Billions on from being hacked. It may not be as sexy and flashy as what our leaders seem to be turned on by - but it would sure cost a lot less and be a lot more effective in the long run.

Many of the systems that I worked with while in the service (please don't thank me) were startlingly old and analog, but they rarely broke and could not be hacked remotely. Some of those systems were reminiscent of the the old curtained polling booths that my parents took me along to see when they voted. I can't personally attest to vinyl's superior tone over digital media but I would prefer to have a warmer feeling regarding the security of our weapon systems and voting devices. Steampunk hipster engineers: we need you.

Speechless, trillions in defense so old white men don't feel impotent. We need younger people running things. Younger people who love our country because they're not socked by student loan interest rates higher that bank rates. Who love our country because they're not shot 'walking while being black'. Who love our country because their insulin doesn't cost $6,000/mos. Who love are country because when they're assaulted they're believed, and they don't have to bear a rapists child. Who love our country because nobody cares if they have a same sex spouse, have blue hair and tats, or aren't 'Christian'.

“The world’s most lethal weapons are vulnerable to stealthy attacks from stealthy enemies — attacks that could have catastrophic consequences,” Do we already have any feedback from Skynet? It is not only the danger of having a foreign army neutralizing your weapons systems or even using them against you, it is also the issue of having terrorists and artificial intelligence entering your systems and use them against you. No need to blame it on Russia or China, or North Korea, you also need to understand that the enemy in this kind of situation may be your own military systems like the AI solutions that are already used to analyse satellite pictures to identify targets. What if one of these systems calculates that your own installation is a higher risk than an enemy installation and feeds the targeting information into an automated weapons system? Sounds far fetched? No, it is not, as such systems are already in use, still under human control but that will end sooner or later for reasons of efficiency. It might be a good idea to separate some systems from the network again and connect them to old but secure solutions again.

You want systems that are secure, easy to access, and reliable. Unfortunately you can now only get 2 out of 3. By the time you authenticate you may be dead. Make it too easy, and an enemy can use your own weapons to kill you. Add to that you need a ubiquitous ad hoc system of network access because combat is a process of improvisation. Military systems use off the shelf commercial software. That's not for cost savings, it's because the s/w has been beat to death by millions of users and it "works". When commercial software is "safe", military s/w will be safe.

"A public version of the study, published on Tuesday, deleted all names and descriptions of which systems were attacked so the report could be published without tipping off American adversaries about the vulnerabilities." Mornings are hard for me, especially when I have had trouble falling asleep, as I so often do, but I know I can count on the New York Times for a belly laugh that puts a smile on my face for the rest of the day. The line above tickled me pink, as I am sure is true for any number of people in the governments, militaries, and intelligence agencies around the world. Surely it is producing laughter in China and Russia, but nowhere is the laughter louder than in the boardrooms of US defense contractors and the offices of the Senators and Congresspeople that keep them fat with profits. They know full well that the reason the identities of the weapons systems that are so easily hacked and made worthless are withheld from the public is the simple fact that the public would be outraged at being gouged for hundreds of billions for weapons that can be neutralized within minutes by a series of keystrokes. Some seventy-five or so years after the institutionalization of a corporate welfare state, i.e. a permanent war economy, we're used to the idea of flushing trillions down the toilet every year. But, we'd like to think some of this gold-plated rubbish might actually work if push ever came to shove in a "real" war (i.e., one we'd bend over backwards to avoid). Ha!

Let's keep networking everything to the internet. We can order a pizza or having our "internet of things" refrigerator launch a nuclear missile.

"In many cases, the military teams developing or testing the systems were oblivious to the hacking." See yet why it's important to report even vulnerabilities that *haven't* apparently been used in attacks, aspiring defense-contractor and Real Name harasser Google? It'll literally be the difference between winning and losing a WAR—especially if megacorps like you foist the "smart"(creepy)-device and "internet of things" mindsets on weapons that shouldn't be viewable or controllable on the public internet at all.

The people living off our taxes can't protect us. What else is new! Remember Pearl Harbor (okay, a bit of a cliché but nevertheless ...)? Remember the 9/11 devastation by those fellas/student pilots from fourth-world countries? Rocket Man's techies took out Sony?

“Shall we play a game?” No! Where are you when we need you most Matthew Broderick?

Well Mr trump does the buck stop with you on this matter ? No I did not think so .. You have to wonder what sort of people are running the Pentagon ? Pompeo and Bolton and mad dog Mattis should be feeling a bit sheepish when they have their daily briefing in the morning .. Will the Saudis and others who have bought missile systems from the US be on the phone now demanding to get answers as to the vulnerable systems ..?? Bet they are sleeping more soundly tonight..

From the report: "Operators reported that they did not suspect a cyber attack because unexplained crashes were normal for the system. " Nice to know that some of the weapons systems crash a lot. I wonder how many of these crashing weapons systems were programmed with Ada.

It's nice, in a way, to see Arthur C. Clarke's classic story "Superiority" once again proved current. On the other hand, that $1.66 trillion of junk weaponry could have been turned into another tax cut for the billionaire class, a far more efficient way to give away our tax money to big business and billionaires than simply purchasing fancy weaponry from them.

If hackers were able to easily do this, is there any doubt that our unsophisticated electronic voting machines have been and continue to be hacked without leaving a trace? Wake up.

This administration, after reading the report: "Abolish the GAO! They do nothing for anyone, they're always negative, always pointing out flaws and never successes....tell me, why do we need a GAO?"

Were this to happen to a private corporation the board would be holding the CEO responsible. Do you suppose the American people will hold Trump & his people to task? No. They will blame the GAO for being infested with liberal/Democratic/anti-Trump forces.

The scariest part of this article wasn't that US military systems could be so easily hacked (that was kind of a given), but that President Trump gave US commanders more access to untested and weaponised systems without requiring presidential approval. Another check and balance on the US military is gone. Essentially, Trump has given his military commanders the order of "Win by any means, I don't care how, I don't even want to know how, the end justify the means"

When I first started working with these systems over 30 years ago, I told people we would be vulnerable on the battlefield because of the dependence on electronics. Look what Putin did to our elections with a few million dollars. The vulnerability that they don't talk about much is that the manual skills that the computers replaced are pretty much lost, like calculating trajectories of artillery rounds. Bottom line, this isn't a new problem.

If the Pentagon's "red team" could break-in this easily, then it seems to me some other Red Teams must have found their way in long before now...

This report is literally a report about other reports. Read it. The tests mentioned were conducted by the DOD between 2012-2017. See page 21. The GAO simply analyzed old DOD reports and repackaged them with some interview content in order to get a story in the Times claiming they conducted a "new and blistering" review. This is a political tactic as the hills. "The report by the Government Accountability Office concluded that the weapons could be neutralized within hours and, in many cases, that the military was oblivious to the hacking" because the DOD reports concluded that years ago.

Another problem is that our best and brightest will not work for defense contractors. So, we get system built by the not so bright. Bad scenario.

The solution is simple: more money for the military.

It's bad enough that we are building weapons at enormous expense that have classified capabilities for mass and targeted destruction that are probably (and thank god) never going to be used. It's worse that the contractors and the overseers at the various military branches don't understand the implications of the insecurity of these systems from outside hackers. Look what happened in the election. This is a dereliction of their duties and a further pox on the military industrial complex's unfettered access to our tax dollars. Worse we have no effective way as voters currently to reign in this problem.

It starts at the top with a clueless Commander-In-Chief who still equivocates and/or outright denies that Russia prosecuted a cyber-war attack on our election for the Presidency of the United States. He has also stated that he "fell in love" with the despot leader of North Korea who still develops nuclear weapons to potentially use against us.

I believe I just got sick and tired of winning.

Luckily our passcodes are secure with Putin's pup!

OMG! You con't put nuclear weapons on the internet! What were they thinking?

Easy to crack passwords? Like "TrumpMAGA" perhaps?

If we have to wait for another pearl harbor or a 9/11, we won't be able to recover. We will have left ourselves too vulnerable. Where is the leadership? Oh yes, when Nov 6 comes, we will see a bunch of women leaders. Then things will get done.

No surprise here. Just think about all the successful hacking of presumed "safe" sites. Want secrecy forever, write a letter. Bottom line, the more electronically interconnected the greater the vulnerability. Technique development is another story but one could recommend something old, unexpected and simplistically unsophisticated.

Increasingly this is how battle is done -- not with missiles or aircraft, but with cyber attacks on everything from military systems and power grids to social media and voting machines. Let's hope that our government is at the vanguard of this evolution and not playing catch-up, because now the potential enemy is anyone, anywhere.