The latest news linked to the above breach is that Lockheed Martin has been compromised and it could possibly be linked to the SecurID tokens. Now this is a BIG deal as they are a US Military contractor and probably have some pretty juicy secrets in their network.

Lockheed Martin Saturday night acknowledged that it its information systems network had been the target of a “significant and tenacious attack,” but said that its security team detected the intrusion “almost immediately and took aggressive actions to protect all systems and data.”

No data from customers, programs or employees was compromised, the top U.S. defense contractor said in a brief statement.

The company said that it has kept U.S. government agencies informed of its investigation as it “continues to work around the clock to restore employee access to the network.”

The attack was first reported last Thursday by Reuters, which cited a defense official and two unnamed sources familiar with the situation. The news agency reported that the cyberattack was affecting many employees at Lockheed Martin, which is based in Bethesda, Maryland, and makes fighter planes and other weapons systems.

Bruce Schneier mentioned it here – Lockheed Martin Hack Linked to RSA’s SecurID Breach

And a lot of people have been sayings it’s just speculation, yah the hack is real – but does it have anything to do with SecurID really? We have no idea.

There’s some interesting thoughts on it here – Weekly Intelligence Summary:2011-05-27

On Saturday, an official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed the attack to the news agency. However, Lockheed Martin continued to decline comment.

The intrusion reported involves the use of RSA SecurID tokens, used by Lockheed Martin employees to access the company network remotely. Security analysts have urged that companies using the tokens review authentication procedures.

Lockheed Martin did not divulge how its systems were attacked. The company faces “constant threats from adversaries around the world” and regularly acts to heighten security of its systems, it said in the statement.

Homeland Security have confirmed the compromise but as of now, Lockheed Martin has no made statement regarding what has happened or what data has been accessed.

There some thoughts from SANS ISC Diary here on how to stay secure even if you do use SecurID – Lockheed Martin and RSA Tokens.

It’ll be interesting to see what other news comes out about this and if any actual details are revealed. We shall be keeping an eye on it.

Source: Network World

Not just attempts, but 844 successful intrusions over the past two years, quite a scary statistic no?

They are actually having a subcommittee hearing entitled “Hacking the Homeland”.

This includes all kinds of intrusions including web site hacks, viruses, worms and other kinds of intrusion.

DHS and its constituent agencies have suffered more than 800 serious computer security incidents from 2005 through 2006, including compromised agency Web sites, unchecked computer virus and worm infections, and digital intruders that were quietly transmitting stolen data out of government networks. The panel also will examine reports of system compromises that lead to “classified data spills” within DHS.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said what DHS is doing on its own networks speaks so loud that its message on the importance of securing computer systems and networks is not getting across to anybody else.

They’ve spent a lot of money on security, perhaps in all the wrong places. I guess it’s time they hire people like us to tell them what to do eh?

It’s definitely a case of “Do what I say, not what I do” – a recipe for disaster.

The committee also is expected to quiz department leaders on spending such a small amount of its total information technology budget on security. According to data handed over to the committee, DHS’s chief information security officer’s budget shrank or remained stagnant over the past three years, even in the face of persistent security problems at the agency. In 2005, DHS allocated just $17.5 million for its CISO office, a figure that fell to just $15 million in FY2007.

Like several other agencies this year, DHS earned a grade of “D” on meeting federal cyber-security requirements. But many critics of that grading process say the law that the marks are based upon – the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) – more accurately measures how adroitly agencies can tackle paperwork exercises, not necessarily the strength of each agency’s network and computer defenses.

I’m sure everyone is interested to hear exactly what is going on at Homeland.

This story seems to have been pulled off a number of original sources too, which I find a little odd – I had to hunt a little to find another version.

Source: Tech Target

An open-source security audit program funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has flagged a critical vulnerability in the X Window System (X11) which is used in Unix and Linux systems. A missing parentheses in a bit of code is to blame. The error can grant a user root access, and was discovered using an automated code-scanning tool.

The flaw has been fixed.

It was a change from this:

if (getuid() == 0 || geteuid != 0)

to this:

if (getuid() == 0 || geteuid() != 0)

The best part was the CVS comment:

Fri Mar 10 17:29:51 2006 UTC (7 weeks, 4 days ago) by deraadt:
proper geteuid calls because suse hires people who mistype things

From the article:

Coverity, the San Franciso-based company managing the project under a $1.25 million grant, described the flaw as the “biggest security vulnerability” found in the X Window System code since 2000.

The X Window System, also called X11 or X, provides the toolkit and protocol to build GUIs for Unix and Unix-like operating systems. It is used to provide windowing for bit-map displays.

Source: Yahoo News

Apparently OpenBSD already fixed this during a code-cleanup.

Well I would have thought these guys should have had a little better security..

The Department of Homeland Security received an F (Failing) grade in cybersecurity from the House Government Reform Committee for the third year in a row. The Committee will likely give the Fed a D+ overall for its cybersecurity efforts. The grades will be unveiled today during a Committee oversight hearing, “Is the Government Ready for a Digital Pearl Harbor?” The grades are based on how well the comply with standards defined by the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA)

Better hope the cyber warfare cells from ‘enemy countries’ don’t notice this eh?

Source: Zdnet Blogs – Full Chart