http://www.wsj.com/articles/three-months-later-state-department-hasnt-rooted-out-hackers-1424391453
By DANNY YADRON
The Wall Street Journal
Feb. 19, 2015
Three months after the State Department confirmed hackers breached its
unclassified email system, the government still hasn’t been able to evict
them from the department’s network, according to three people familiar
with the investigation.
Government officials, assisted by outside contractors and the National
Security Agency, have repeatedly scanned the network and taken some
systems offline. But investigators still see signs of the hackers on State
Department computers, the people familiar with the matter said. Each time
investigators find a hacker tool and block it, these people said, the
intruders tweak it slightly to attempt to sneak past defenses.
It isn’t clear how much data the hackers have taken, the people said. They
reaffirmed what the State Department said in November: that the hackers
appear to have access only to unclassified email. Still, unclassified
material can contain sensitive intelligence.
The episode illustrates the two-way nature of high-technology sleuthing.
For all of the U.S. government’s prowess at getting into people’s
computers through the NSA and the military’s Cyber Command, the government
faces challenges keeping hackers out of its own networks. The discrepancy
points to a commonly cited problem with defending computers: Playing
offense almost is always easier than playing defense.
[...]
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