Security holes in Pentagon systems could be "easily" exploited by hackers with disastrous geopolitical consequences
Dan Tentler, founder of computer security firm Phobos Group, has warned the Pentagon: there is danger of a hacker attack. And he warns: "they are vulnerabilities so easy to detect that I probably wasn't the first to discover them".
The hypothesis is therefore twofold: hackers are already exploiting these flaws or they will do it very soon. The Pentagon, by the way, is aware that its servers are not secure, but has not yet taken action, eight months after Dan Tentler's report. An attack on the Pentagon's infrastructure would have very serious repercussions: U.S. or, even worse, foreign hackers could launch attacks through government systems and pass them off as if the author was the U.S. Department of Defense. That wouldn't be a good situation.
We need to act now!
A landmark case that casts doubt on the effectiveness of an executive order sought by the Trump administration on cybersecurity, which aims to review all federal systems for security issues and vulnerabilities within 60 days. A draft of the order was leaked last week, and Tentler says that, based on his experience, the plans drawn up by the government are simply "unworkable" because, according to the expert, they "demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of what problems actually exist." Do the directives call for an assessment of the entire U.S. government's IT infrastructure within 60 days? Tentler wonders. And the Pentagon, which has known about these dangerous vulnerabilities for months, still hasn't fixed them? A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on Dan Tentler's claims.