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Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Military personnel targeted in cyberattack

By | June 29, 2011, 6:31am PDT

Summary: Military-minded publications owned by publisher Gannett were hacked this month, exposing the names, passwords and e-mail addresses of active and retired military personnel.

How do you launch an attack against military personnel without trying to hack into the U.S. armed forces’ systems?

Target the publications they read, of course.

Military- and defense-minded publications owned by publisher Gannett were hacked earlier this month, the company admitted yesterday, leaving the names, passwords and e-mail addresses of active and retired military personnel exposed to the attackers.

On June 7, 2011, the Gannett Government Media family of websites suffered a cyber attack that resulted in some users being unable to access parts or all of the websites. We also discovered that the attacker gained unauthorized access to files containing information of some of our users. The information in those files included first and last name, userID, password, email address, the internal number we assigned to the account, and, if provided, ZIP code, duty status, paygrade, and branch of service.

Among those publications targeted: DefenseNews, the Military Times, the Federal Times, the Army Times, the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Journal, the Armed Forces Journal, the Navy Times, the Air Force Times, the Marine Corps Times.

The company says it has hired an “outside computer forensics company” to help it investigate and strengthen its security system.

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Topics

Andrew J. Nusca is associate editor of ZDNet and editor of SmartPlanet.

Disclosure

Andrew Nusca

Andrew J. Nusca does not hold any investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Andrew Nusca

Editor

Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor at ZDNet and editor of SmartPlanet. As a journalist based in New York City, he has written for Popular Mechanics and Men's Vogue and his byline has appeared in New York magazine, The Huffington Post, New York Daily News, Editor & Publisher, New York Press and many others. He also writes The Editorialiste, a media criticism blog.

He is a New York University graduate and former news editor and columnist of the Washington Square News. He is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has been named "Howard Kurtz, Jr." by film critic John Lichman despite having no relation to him. He lives in his native Philadelphia with his wife, cat and Boston Terrier.

Follow him on Twitter.

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RE: Military personnel targeted in cyberattack
FAULKNE 13th Oct
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0 Votes
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I'll take a guess here
Will Pharaoh 29th Jun
All these sites that are getting hacked lately are all using Microsoft IIS.

You know, reputations and all are at stake here.
0 Votes
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Well there ya go
blind obedience 29th Jun
Now you're catching on. wink

Time to put Redmond swiss cheese to rest.
end of story ......... they say the Brooklyn bridge is up for sale again .....................
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RE: Military personnel targeted in cyberattack
Peter.mitchell@... Updated - 29th Jun
Serves the criminals right!
@Peter.mitchell@... Exactly to which criminals are you referring?
0 Votes
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...you ENCRYPT passwords. No one but the user has any need to know the password anyway. Why is there even a way to generate clear-text passwords?

If the company needs to get into the account for whatever reason they can reset the password. That way no one but the user ever knows what the password was.

Come on guys, this isn't rocket science!
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@wolf_z Common sense
OneTwoc21 29th Jun
Sometimes isn't so common happy
Computer connections need caller id.
0 Votes
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easy to protect themselves
UmutSelvi 30th Jun
I don't believe when I read any news about mail hack. That's to stupid in PrivateSky time. People just needs to use smart and simple encryption tool for emails. I recommend you take a look at that product https://PrivateSky.me I also seek another useful tool. If you know, please share links with me.
If the company needs to get into the account for whatever reason they can reset the password. That way no one but the user ever knows what the password was. apostas desportivas
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