Pentagon: 2008 Cyber Breach, Considered the Biggest Ever, Was Caused By a Simple Flash Drive

Flash Drives Beware. Andrezadnik via Wikimedia

In the first on-the-record, official recognition that a foreign intelligence agency infiltrated sensitive U.S. military CentCom networks in 2008, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III has revealed the source of the attack. And it was -- drumroll please -- a flash drive. A simple flash drive inserted into a military laptop at a location in the Middle East allowed malicious code to install and conceal itself on both classified and unclassified servers, opening them to foreign control.

The acknowledgement that such a simple process set off such an egregious breach of security highlights not only the danger that cyber threats pose, but just how fragile sensitive systems -- the systems by which America makes war -- can be.

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Technology, Clay Dillow, computers, cyber attacks, cyber security, defense, malicious software, military, security

But what the Pentagon learned the hard way is also a timely reminder for the rest of us as well. Keep in mind that foreign flash drives are something like sailors during Fleet Week -- there's just no way to know where they've been or what they've been, ahem, uploading. Be safe out there.

[Washington Post]