If you were looking for something to raise your blood pressure and once again point out the incompetence of the Federal Government and the Obama Administration, look no further. The facts that nothing was done to prevent the cyber attack on the OPM database and that no righteous retaliation against China will happen are both equally distressing.
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...ords-hack-china-pearl-harbor-column/71210018/...And then it got worse. "Hackers linked to China have gained access to the sensitive background information submitted by intelligence and military personnel for security clearances, U.S. officials said Friday, describing a cyberbreach of federal records dramatically worse than first acknowledged."
And there are lessons in this debacle, if we are willing to learn them.
Aside from regular federal personnel records, which provide a royal route to blackmail, intimidation and identity theft for present and retired federal workers, the hackers also stole a trove of military and intelligence records that could be even more valuable. The forms stolen were Standard Form 86, in which employees in sensitive positions list their weaknesses: past arrests, bankruptcies, drug and alcohol problems, etc. The 120 plus pages of questions also include civil lawsuits, divorce information, Social Security numbers, and information on friends, roommates, spouses and relatives.
The result? About 14 million current and former federal employees are in a state of collective panic over the loss of their information. Former State Department employee Matthew Palmer was quoted as saying, "Who is in danger? I listed friends on those forms and my family members. Are some hackers going to start going after them?"
Possibly. The U.S. military, even in its current somewhat shrunken state, remains an irresistible force in conventional warfare. But this trove of information is perfect for "fourth-generation warfare," in which conventional strengths are bypassed in favor of targeted attacks on a stronger nation's weaknesses. With this sort of information, China will find it much easier to recruit agents, blackmail decision-makers and in the event of a straight-up conflict strike directly at Americans in the government, all without launching a single missile.
That's why experts are calling this security breach a "debacle" and "potentially devastating." Some are even calling it a "cyber Pearl Harbor."
Perhaps that's a bit strong: Unlike the real Pearl Harbor attack, there are no burning and sunken ships full of American sailors. On the other hand, if the Japanese in 1941 could have kept the U.S. from interfering with their Pacific conquests through subtler means than air-dropped torpedoes, they no doubt would have been happy to do so. And that's the situation that China, with cyberattacks such as this one, is trying to bring about.
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