Virus hits nearly 75% of systems on Afghanistan military base

The article is (deliberately?) shy on meaningful details. As usual, nobody says "Windows". But I bet money that's what it is. What good is it banning removable media? Hello, where did they hire their IT bosses from, the day labor shack? Same goes for the "reporters."

I read the linked articles, nope, nothing there, just lots of vague handwaving about Teh Evel Rooshun n Chinee Hackzorz. Though one of them inadvertently let slip the name of one the of malwares, agent.btz. Let us see what treasures lurk in Google:

http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/worm_w32_agent_btz.shtml

Quoting: F-Secure Malware Information Pages: Worm:W32/Agent.BTZ

File System Changes Creates these files:

%windir%system32muxbde40.dll %windir%system32winview.ocx %temp%6D73776D706461742E746C62FA.tmp %windir%system32mswmpdat.tlb

Boy howdy, that sure looks like a clue to me!

Gives me goose bumps just knowing that the US army relies on Microsoft Windows for something this important.

How is it that the NSA and Homeland Security have figured out that Linux (FOSS) is the way to go if you want secure system but the U.S. Army has not?!?!?

@Scott... Army Intelligence.

Quoting:I read the linked articles, nope, nothing there, just lots of vague handwaving about Teh Evel Rooshun n Chinee Hackzorz. Though one of them inadvertently let slip the name of one the of malwares, agent.btz.

Could this also plausibly be Pakistan's brightest minds taking to turning against the U.S. military in Afghanistan concurrently with the cyberwarfare engaged upon their powerful southern neighbor during this post-Mombai period of time?? To wit: - 'Indian Sites Cyber-Jacked by Pakistani Hackers', http://www.chowrangi.com/?p=3542&cp=2 - 'Pakistani hackers hack Indian website', http://www.thenews.com.pk/updates.asp?id=60966 - 'Feuding India, Pakistani Hackers Deface Web Sites', http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/154544/feuding... - 'Feuding India, Pakistani hackers deface web sites', http://reseller.co.nz/reseller.nsf/inews/78751AD12B4AA384CC2... - 'Indian, Pak hackers deface govt websites', http://www.zeenews.com/sci-tech/net-news/2008-11-26/486544ne...

- (...etcetera...)

@tracyanne: I walked into that didn't I? LOL!!

SNAFU

I do consulting work for the US Navy, and it is very hard for me to get them to even let me install linux on old hardware that they are trying to throw away ... to use for things like snort sensors and the like.

The IT guys there truly believe that Windows is more secure than Linux. With that as a starting point, it is hard to get anything done.

I work for a very large aerospace and defense contractor (well, the largest, Lockheed-Martin) and it's all Windows desktops and many Windows servers. We do have some RedHat servers and Solaris, and some antique mainframes and VMS servers but the corporate desktop is XP / Outlook / Excel spreadsheets / Power Point / and some use of Sharepoint.

They did a Technology Adoption Program (TAP) for Vista over a year ago and it seems like they decided not to adopt the technology - for now at least.

On the plus side they do encrypt the notebook computers and seem to have a robust network firewall. Go to a music lyrics site and see lots of interesting things getting blocked.

Quoting:SNAFU

And FUBAR? . . . . . SNAFUBAR!! ;)

jezuch, bless you. Be sure to cover your mouth next time.

I prefer BOHICA

(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNAFU#Variations)