The
Department of Defense’s costliest weapons program ever was allegedly no match
for hackers as spies broke into the Pentagon’s $300 billion Joint Strike
Fighter (JSF) project in 2007. Details continue to be scarce to this day but
former U.S. officials claim the attacks can be traced back to China, a claim
China’s Foreign Ministry immediately refuted. The source of the breach isn’t
publicly known, though fingers pointed to vulnerabilities in systems operated
by defense contractor Lockheed Martin – an accusation the company denied. By the
time it was over, the attack allegedly spilled terabytes of encrypted
information on the JSF project’s F-35 Lightning II fighter jet according to an
investigative report by the Wall Street
Journal in 2009.
(Photo via usnavy Flickr photostream)
