http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/us-nukes-may-be-risk-cyber-attack
During the nuclear honed days of the Cold War, the Soviet Union developed a uniquely dangerous missile able to strike anywhere in the U.S.
A viable counterstrike is one potential scenario China may be planning for, but what unsettled both the U.S. and the Soviets about the MIRVs when they came around the first time was the "enhancement of a first strike capability."
Are US Nuke Secrets Vulnerable to Cyberattack?
The Department of Energy's internal watchdog has released a "very problematic" report about its cybersecurity practices.
| Thu Dec. 20, 2012 3:06 AM PST
The Department of Energy, which is responsible for safeguarding America's nuclear weapons and secrets, has failed to tell law enforcement the details of when its computer systems have come under attack, "hindering investigations" into some of the 2,300 cybersecurity incidents the agency recorded between October 2009 and March 2012. This lack of timely and comprehensive cybersecurity reporting is putting the DOE's "information systems and networks at increased risk," according to a new investigation by the agency's internal watchdog.
The findings are "very problematic," says James Lewis, a senior cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, because "DOE sites are a primary target for espionage and have been successfully hacked in the past."
While preparing the report, the DOE's Office of Inspector General audited seven sites, including nuclear laboratories at Los Alamos and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and found that, of 223 incidents reported at DOE sites, 41 percent were not reported within established time frames. Another 10 incidents involving a loss of personally identifiable information (which affected 109 people) were reported late.
Joshua McConaha, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA), the DOE entity responsible for the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, told Mother Jones that the cybersecurity incidents not involving identity theft "were normal computer issues such as viruses" that occur "on a regular basis." But experts say that the report's findings still don't bode well for nuclear weapons security.
Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, says that while the weapons themselves weren't at risk, "weapons-related information and facility security information could potentially be vulnerable." It wouldn't be the first time: In 2007, hackers believed to be from China launched a sophisticated cyberattack on several DOE laboratories in the United States. A spokesman for Los Alamos National Lab, which undertakes nuclear weapons design, told ABC News that "a significant amount of data was removed" from a small number of computers on the facility's unclassified network. This is the same lab that had its director step down in 2003 after a scandal involving widespread theft and security lapses.
Kevin Roark, a spokesman for Los Alamos National Laboratory, denies that the lab is reporting cyberattacks incorrectly. He told Mother Jones that the audit listed "six incidents where they believed Los Alamos was late in its reporting," none of which had to do with personal information being stolen. And according to Roark, "Los Alamos personnel have subsequently checked the six incidents, and determined that all were reported within the required time frame, but the information in the reports led the reporting authority to derive an inaccurate date and time."
When asked to about the incidents and Roark's response, a spokesman for the IG said that "the report speaks for itself and we have no additional comment."
It's well established that the NNSA faces regular cyberattacks—a spokesman for the agency told US News and World Report in March that if you count "security significant cyber security events," the number of cyberattacks goes up to 10 million per day. (Experts told Mother Jones that the number changes depending on how you categorize different types of incidents.) The real question is whether NNSA and DOE can deal with the attacks. The DOE has recently taken steps like improving cybersecurity training for employees and addressing weaknesses at facilities, according to a separate report released by the inspector general last month.
"Cybersecurity is a work in progress, both inside and outside government." Aftergood notes. " One would like to think that the nuclear weapons infrastructure would be ahead of the curve, but apparently that is too much to expect."
Left unanswered is the question of who's to blame for the cyberattacks that the DOE seems to have so much trouble reporting correctly.
"It's probably not Russia or China," Lewis snipes. "They've already gotten everything."
Zoom in on the map below to find the warheads near you as well as the nuclear labs that maintain the stockpile and develop the next generation of atomic weaponry. (For reference, we've also included the locations of the nation's civilian nuclear power plants.)
and while the US is being subject to hacking probably by China and Russia , look what China has cooked up ........
http://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-df-3a-mirv-multiple-us-targets-one-missle-2012-12#ixzz2FKYExaGs
China's New MIRV Ballistic Missile Is A Big Deal
Loaded with multiple maneuverable warheads (MIRVs), while carrying decoys and chaff to keep from getting struck down, the technology undermined the entire balance of power between the two superpowers and struck fear into hard hearts at the Kremlin and the Pentagon alike.
It was a difficult era, fraught with When China successfully tested its DF-31A missile several days ago, it confirmed another country now has proven nuclear ability reach any city in the U.S. with precisely the type of missiles that troubled the U.S. decades ago.
The DF-31A is believed to have three warheads per missile and a range of about 7,000 miles, which allows it to target anywhere in the U.S. While that ability isn't new, China's CSS-4 has that capability as well, that missile requires a stationary launch pad and contains but one nuclear warhead.
The DF-31A is portable and launches from the back of a tank, train, or truck. China also has more than 3,000 miles of underground tunnels and highly reinforced military bunkers where it can stash the highly mobile ordnance.
Notoriously cryptic about the extent of its nuclear arsenal, China announced the launch on a Chinese military news site.
Bill Gertz at The Washington Free Beacon confirms what the site claims, reporting that U.S. intelligence, airborne, and space sensors picked up the launch from China's Wuzhai Space and Missile Test Center in western China when it happened.
From the Beacon:
It was the second DF-31A flight test since August and highlights China’s growing strategic nuclear buildup, a modernization program largely carried out in secret. The DF-31A test also took place on the last day of a rare U.S.-China military exercise in Chengdu that practiced joint disaster relief efforts.
China is known to use its missile tests to send political signals, as in 1996 when it bracketed Taiwan with missile flight tests that impacted north and south of the island prior to a presidential election. Analysts say the DF-31A test likely was intended to bolster the Chinese military’s hardline stance toward the United States and particularly the U.S. military, regarded by Beijing as its main adversary.
Richard Fisher, a China military affairs specialist, told the Beacon, the development “suggests that China may be building toward a ‘counterstrike’ strategy that would require the secret buildup of many more missiles and warheads than suggested by public ICBM number estimates made available by the U.S. Intelligence Community.”
Basically, having multiple warheads per missile vastly increases the chances of successfully striking the U.S. and at multiple sites. The belief was that this degree of confidence would do little to decrease the chances of nuclear war.
But with so much going on in the world today at a pace the warriors of the Cold War never imagined, it's easy to overlook just one more missile test. Which is why it could be important to remember that it's missiles like this that helped lift the arms race to the frenzied heights it achieved before the Iron Curtain fell in the early 1990s and defined a generation.
If China shares the MIRV technology with Iran, Pakistan, Syria, and North Korea like it has shared nuclear, missile materials, and technology in the past it could prompt an entirely new round of concerns.
