Flash Drive Drives Cyber Attack

WASHINGTON - The most serious cyber attack on the U.S. military's networks came from a tainted flash drive in 2008, forcing the Pentagon to review its digital security, a top US defense official said Aug. 25.

The thumb drive, which was inserted in a military laptop in the Mideast, contained malicious code that "spread undetected on both classified and unclassified systems, establishing what amounted to a digital beachhead, from which data could be transferred to servers under foreign control,"

Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn wrote in the journal Foreign Affairs.

The code was placed on the drive by "a foreign intelligence agency," Lynn wrote.

"It was a network administrator's worst fear: a rogue program operating silently, poised to deliver operational plans into the hands of an unknown adversary."

Previous media reports speculated that the attack may have originated from Russia.

The Pentagon had never openly discussed the incident, but Lynn chose to reveal the details of the attack as officials try to raise public awareness of the growing threat posed to government computer networks.

The incident served as a wake-up for the Pentagon and prompted major changes in how the department handled digital threats, including the formation of a new cyber military command, Lynn said.

After the 2008 assault, the Pentagon banned its work force from using flash drives, but recently eased the prohibition.

Since the attack, the military has developed methods to uncover intruders inside its network, or so-called "active defense systems," according to Lynn.

But he added that drafting rules of engagement for defending against cyber attack was "not easy," as the laws of war were written before the advent of a digital battlefield.

Taliban planning attacks on U.S. aid workers in Pakistan.

Thousands have fled their homes in southern coastal areas in Pakistan
The Pakistani Taliban are planning to attack foreigners helping with flood relief efforts in the country, a senior US official has warned.

The Taliban plan "to conduct attacks against foreigners participating in the ongoing flood relief operations in Pakistan", the official told the BBC.

The official also said "provincial ministers in Islamabad" may be at risk.

The warning comes as thousands flee their homes in southern coastal areas as floods sweep down from the north.

The UN says more than 17 million people have been affected by the monsoon floods, and about 1.2 million homes have been destroyed.
Some five million Pakistanis have no shelter, and urgently need tents or plastic sheeting to protect them from the sun.

According to information available to the US government, Tehrik-e Taliban plans to conduct attacks against foreigners participating in the ongoing flood relief operations in Pakistan," the official told the BBC on condition of anonymity.

"Tehrik-e Taliban also may be making plans to attack federal and provincial ministers in Islamabad."

The BBC's James Reynolds, in Washington, says this marks the first time that the US has specifically warned about attacks in connection to the floods in Pakistan.

It is not yet clear what effect this warning will have on US involvement in relief efforts in Pakistan, our correspondent adds.

The US is one of a number of countries to have sent aid and assistance to Pakistan. The US Agency for International Development says that it has so far provided around $150m in support to victims of the flood.

Villages evacuated

The warning came hours after a top US general involved in the military relief effort said his men had not encountered any security problems in flying aid to Pakistan.

"We have seen no security threat whatsoever in the three weeks we have been operating here," Brigadier General Michael Nagata was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.

He added that the Pakistani military had done a "highly effective job in providing our force protection and security".

Nations, including the US, have pledged more than $700m (£552m) for relief efforts in Pakistan.

Workers have begun clearing up as the floods recede in the north and the UN has appealed for more helicopters to reach 800,000 people who are cut off.

But some 200,000 people have been evacuated in the Thatta area of the southern province of Sindh, where dozens of villages are submerged.

WikiLeaks leaks CIA report

CNN) -- The whistle-blower website WikiLeaks on Wednesday posted what it said was an internal CIA report into the perception that the United States exports terrorism, but one U.S. official said it does not divulge spectacular developments.

The three-page document, dated February 2, 2010, asks, "What If Foreigners See the United States as an 'Exporter of Terrorism?' "
"These sorts of analytic products -- clearly identified as coming from the agency's 'Red Cell' -- are designed to simply provoke thought and present different points of view," said CIA spokesman George Little.

A U.S. intelligence official said, "it's always disturbing when classified information is inappropriately disclosed." However the official added, "this is not a blockbuster paper."
The document, promised by the group in a Twitter message on Tuesday, is labeled "secret," the lowest level of classification.

The website set off a firestorm recently when it posted some 76,000 U.S. documents related to the war in Afghanistan. The group has said it has another 15,000 documents, which it plans to release soon.

The U.S. Defense Department has demanded WikiLeaks return all documents belonging to the Pentagon and delete any records of them. Officials in Afghanistan have also criticized the leak.
The founder and editor of the website, Julian Assange, was arrested in absentia last week in Sweden on charges of rape, but the warrant was revoked less than a day later by Chief Prosecutor Eva Finne.

Assange told the Arabic-language television network Al-Jazeera on Sunday the accusations are "clearly a smear campaign."
"The only question is, who was involved?" he asked, declining to say who he thinks is behind the effort.

Separately on Tuesday, the attorney for the alleged victims told CNN rumors that the Pentagon or CIA was somehow involved in the sex crime accusations against Assange are "complete nonsense."
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates also has criticized the organization's last leak of documents saying it would have a significant negative impact on troops and allies, revealing techniques and procedures.

Assange has defended the leak by saying it can help shape the public's understanding of the war. He said the material was of no operational significance and that WikiLeaks tried to ensure the material did not put innocent people at risk.

Assange reportedly has spent his life developing the tech skills needed to set up WikiLeaks. When he was a teenager in Melbourne, Australia, he belonged to a hacker collective called the International Subversives, according to the magazine Mother Jones.

He eventually pleaded guilty to multiple counts of breaking into Australian government and commercial websites to test their security gaps, but was released on bond for "good behavior," the magazine said.

As WikiLeaks has grown and published increasingly high-profile items, Assange has found himself the target of what he says are many legal attacks.

Lockheed unveils MAPLE (MPLE) UAV

AUVSI: Skunk Works lifts curtain on new UAV programs
By Stephen Trimble

Lockheed Martin's advanced development programs division - also known as Skunk Works - has chosen the AUVSI show to lift the curtain on two previously internal concepts for new unmanned air vehicles (UAVs).

The new disclosures reveal how far Lockheed has pushed internally during the last decade on sophisticated unmanned technology, even as rival manufacturers Boeing and Northrop Grumman worked on the high-profile, ill-fated, joint unmanned combat air systems (J-UCAS) program.

A concept image showing the multipurpose long-endurance (MPLE - pronounced "maple") reveals a twin-boomed UAV with a high-aspect ratio wing set against a desert backdrop at a medium altitude elevation.

Lockheed confirms MPLE will challenge the Aurora Flight Sciences' Orion vehicle for a new Air Force Research Laboratory contract to demonstrate a medium-altitude surveillance aircraft that can remain airborne for five days, says Bob Ruszkowski, a Skunk Works systems engineer.

Ruszkowski declined to divulge MPLE's propulsion system, although he ruled out hydrogen. Asked if the aircraft is battery- or gas-powered, Ruszkowski says only that the aircraft will employ a highly efficient propulsion system.

MPLE is actually a scaled-down version of a much larger concept design developed by Skunk Works, he adds.

Skywatchers: X-37 Mini Shuttle "disappears" for 2 weeks-changes orbit.

AMATEUR astronomers are enjoying a cat-and-mouse game with the US military in keeping track of its secret space plane, the X-37B.

The X-37B was launched in April amid much publicity, but scant detail about its true use.
Built by Boeing's Phantom Works division, the X-37B program was originally headed by NASA.
It was later turned over to the Pentagon's research and development arm and then to a secretive Air Force unit.

Only a very select few in the US military know what it's for, but observers on Earth believe they're putting together the puzzle piece by piece. Several sources claim quote arms control advocates who say it's clearly the beginning of the "weaponisation of space".

In May, avid skywatcher Ted Molczan studied the X-37B's orbit from his home in Toronto and said its behaviour suggested it was testing sensors for a range of new spy satellites.
Since then, the X-37B been arguably the least-secret secret project on the planet, as fellow backyard astronomers joined in the scrutiny, aided by how-to video guides and apps such as the Simple Satellite Tracker.

That is, they did until July 29, when the shuttle disappeared, causing all kinds of consternation and conspiracy theories about its fate.

It took amateur skywatcher Greg Roberts of Cape Town, South Africa, who noticed that it failed to appear as scheduled above his base on August 14, another five days to find it.
When he did, he noticed it was some 30km higher and on a different trajectory, according to calculations from other colleagues in Rome and Oklahoma.

The X-37B's new track takes it on a six-day orbit of the Earth, as opposed to its original four-day orbit.

Mr Molczan believes this may be another small piece to the puzzle about what role the shuttle may play in US military operations.

"This small change of orbit may have been a test of OTV-1's manoeuvring system, or a requirement of whatever payload may be aboard, or both," he said in a release paper about Roberts' X-37B find.
The shuttle has been in orbit now for 124 days. It uses a solar array once in space for power, which theoretically will allow it to stay airborne for up to 270 days.

But the additional presence of large fuel tanks and a rocket motor allows it to change orbit, as evidenced by the latest sudden change of course.

According to the The Register, this is a key component of its surveillance-related capabilities, along with the fact it can land in a much more versatile fashion than other shuttles.
Using its "cross-range" wings, it can duck off elsewhere once its entered the Earth's atmosphere rather than follow its oribital track to a pre-specified landing pad.

This means the X-37B can get up and down from space in one orbit, as its wings allow it to compensate for the slight turn in the Earth and bend it back to its original launch pad.
The Register says that capability would make it difficult to track, as it would only pass over a region once.

Theoretically, it could drop a spy satellite on one run, then pick it up on the next without the satellite having ever been detected.

Observers claim the X-37B can carry a payload roughly the size of a medium-sized truck bed, or enough to hold a spy satellite.

According to the Pentagon, a second X-37B is under construction, so expect the guessing game to continue for some time about what the US military is really up to in space.
Until now, all that remains known about the X-37B is that is it has at least one trick - the ability to hide from skywatchers for two weeks.