News

Gov't Security Tests Find Holes

Fake cyberattackers and hackers largely foiled government and industry attempts to fight back quickly and effectively during a test of computer security systems.

Fake cyberattackers and hackers largely foiled government and industry attempts to fight back quickly and effectively during a test of computer security systems, the government said Wednesday.

Yet the Homeland Security Department claimed victory in the four-day, $3 million war game in February. It was the government's biggest exercise in responding to mock Internet attacks.

The department's report noted gaps in response communications and sluggish public assurances during the test. The report concluded that responders were widely unable to determine whether the series of simulated hackings, which could have halted subways and triggered power outages, were isolated or part of a coordinated assault.

"Most incidents were treated as individual and discrete events," the report found.

The report did say that "by and large, the participating organizations and their practices met the challenges presented." It also said "the cybercommunity must continue to improve its ability to effectively respond to and recover from the most sophisticated of cyberattacks."

The department's undersecretary, George W. Foresman, said the test succeeded because it revealed security gaps that such exercises are "designed to strengthen."

"I want to get us to the point where we can measure America's cybersecurity preparedness," Foresman said. "We're not there yet."

There was no impact on the real Internet during the exercise, which involved more than 300 people from the government, three states, five nations, nine technology companies and six public utilities.

An internal agency document shows the simulated attacks bombed or otherwise infiltrated computer servers, crashing the Federal Aviation Administration's control system, defacing newspaper Web sites and threatening power outages.

The fake perpetrators, according to the internal document, included activist groups, disgruntled employees-turned-hackers and bloggers.

Featured

  • Microsoft Appoints Althoff as New CEO for Commercial Business

    Microsoft CEO and chairman Satya Nadella on Wednesday announced the promotion of Judson Althoff to CEO of the company's commercial business, presenting the move as a response to the dramatic industrywide shifts caused by AI.

  • Broadcom Revamps VMware Partner Program Again

    Broadcom recently announced a significant update regarding its VMware Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) program, coinciding with the release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, a key component in Broadcom’s private cloud strategy.

  • Closeup of the new Copilot keyboard key

    Microsoft Updates Copilot To Add Context-Sensitive Agents to Teams, SharePoint

    Microsoft has rolled out a new public preview for collaborative "always on" agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot, bringing enhanced, context-aware tools into Teams channels, meetings, SharePoint sites, Planner workstreams and Viva Engage communities.

  • Windows 365 Cloud Apps Now Available for Public Preview

    Microsoft announced this week that Windows 365 Cloud Apps are now available for public preview. This aims to allow IT administrators to stream individual Windows applications from the cloud, removing the need to assign Cloud PCs to every user.