In an article for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III writes that in 2008, a flash drive believed to have been infected by a foreign intelligence agency uploaded malicious code onto a network run by the military’s Central Command.
“That code 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,” Lynn writes. “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.”
In response to the incident, the military implemented a ban on USB devices, a prohibition that has since been modified.
For more, read the eWeek article, Defense Department Confirms Critical Cyber Attack.
