Sec 305 Week 4 assignment - Essay Example

Intrusion to these satellites would lead to a failure of the information system to convey real time data and also data integrity. Chinese started invading the United States and government in 2003. A successful attack was in 2007 where two United States government satellites and the Pentagons computer network were hacked by the Chinese military hackers. This was after a series of invasions which had Titan rain as the code name. The motive was to completely shut down Pentagon server computer which was had more than 1500 computers connected to it and to steal systems that are sensitive.

Some of these were, technologies used in surveillance and avionics for aircrafts (Barnes and Julian 2008). The attack is believed to have been through an email scum where a PDF document that appeared to have very important information. The hacker set up an email account that would be gotten rid of later. The account was then set up and made to have a screen name appear as that one of the target. The victim probably saw the message and thought that it came from one of his colleagues and opened it.

This launched the attached PDF and led to an automatic installation of malicious software in the machine. When the virus had completely configured itself the hacker had full control of the machine. With the hacker’s manipulation, the virus searched for files in the system. It then archived them and sent them back to the hacker through File Transfer Protocol or Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. The virus had sent approximately 24,000 files back to the Chinese hackers. When the pentagon realized that they had been hacked it was too late but it managed to use its sophisticated technology which indicated that the attacks came from the Chinese government.

It later took its computers offline for about three weeks to carry out thorough investigations and intensify their firewalls security (Barnes and Julian 2008). Evidently, a comparison of the US F-22 jet fighter and the Chengdu J-20 fighter has proved the success of Chinas intrusions. Though it had been a bit harder for the Chinese engineers to make an exact replica of the engine, they managed to produce a cockpit that looks exactly like that of the F-22 jet. The satellite attack was conducted through Svalbard ground station located in Spitsbergen, Norway.

It is believed that they used it because it depends on the internet to transfer files and accessing of data. It targeted two satellites, one used to provide information on terrain observation and the other used for earth climate observation. Terra AM-1, a satellite used by national Aeronautics and Space Administration, was completely under the hackers control but lucky enough they never took advantage of it (Barnes and Julian 2008). They only left Chinese military inscriptions which passed information on disabling an enemy’s ground based telecommunication facilities.

The Landsat-7 was the second satellite intruded. Experts said it experienced more than twelve minutes of interference. Such an attack posed potential threats such as denial, degradation or manipulation of the transmission by the satellite The intrusion was a wakeup call for the United States. It made them aware of the Chinese abandonment of the traditional warfare that involved attacks using arsenal via land, water and air to cyber space. This has made it more aware of Chinas