Mounting Malware Threat to the US Federal Government

According to several govt. units incidents of malware attacks on the computer systems of the US government have grown extensively during 2008 in comparison of the last few years.

The Department of Homeland Security claims that almost 5,499 breaching incidents of the computer systems of the federal government with malware came into light in 2008 as compared to 3,928 and 2,172 in 2007 and 2006 respectively.

Additionally, the headquarters of the US Department of Defense, the Pentagon, said that it had spent over $100 Million during October 2008- March 2009 as a consequence of destructions caused due to cyber assaults and various other network related problems.

As per a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan firm in Washington, severe breaching incidents by unrecognized entities have arise in current years in PCs at many well-recognized firms including NASA.

The security experts claim that it is not only US which has been targeted by cyber attacks. During 2007, Russian attackers manipulated the computer systems in Estonia, North America, for virtually three weeks. Besides, in Germany, experts have been observing Chinese cyber spying since 1990s. The domestic intelligence agency of Germany notes that the country has confirmed several cyber attacks every year while the others had remained unidentified.

Likewise, governments are not the only targets. The security experts inform that cyber surveillance is a trouble in every sector which includes both individuals and organizations. Anything from the eye-catching intellectual property to anything that is costly will be targeted by the cyber criminals.

In addition, it seems that governments are also using cyber attacks. Some autonomous Western computer experts have tracked domain names and website registration details and have arrived at the conclusion that Russia's leading security and military intelligence agencies were engaged in denial-of-service attacks witnessed by govt. of Georgia and corporate sites, resulting into the conflict between Georgia and Russia.

Ultimately, security experts inform that a hacker with high speed Internet connection, awareness of computer security and some luck can steal details thought to be safely kept in digital locker. And the threat is rising, with countries (including US) blaming each other even while they are raising their own cyber surveillance.

Related article: Mountain West Bank Consumers Targeted by phishing Scam

» SPAMfighter News - 4/21/2009