Lockheed Martin Hit By Cyber Attack, Department Of Homeland Security Confirms

WASHINGTON — Hackers launched a "significant and tenacious" cyber attack on Lockheed Martin, a major defense contractor holding highly sensitive information, but its secrets remained safe, the company said Saturday.

Lockheed Martin, the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon confirmed that the contractor's information systems had come under attack. Lt. Col. April Cunningham, speaking for the Defense Department, said the impact on the Pentagon "is minimal and we don't expect any adverse effect."

Still, the concerted attempt to breach the contractor's systems underscored the risk to the nation's critical defense data. Chris Ortman, Homeland Security spokesman, said his agency and the Pentagon were working with the company to determine the breadth of the attack and "provide recommendations to mitigate further risk."

Lockheed Martin said in a statement that it detected the May 21 attack "almost immediately" and took countermeasures. As a result, "our systems remain secure; no customer, program or employee personal data has been compromised." The company's security team is still working to restore employee access to the targeted network. Neither Lockheed Martin nor the federal agencies revealed specifics of the attack.

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AP writer Jennifer Malloy contributed to this report from Los Angeles.

Comments

[MarandaLaw]

01:33 PM on 06/11/2011

Lockheed?Yeah Right!!

[Ralph Boyd]

06:50 PM on 05/31/2011

The attack was likely an easily stopped diversion the real attack probably went through undetected.

Silly Rabbit.

[joeyfoto]

01:12 PM on 05/31/2011

Cyber-Security remains a myth.

As seriously as some people take it; nobody, who is serious,
thinks it is anything more than an oxymoron.

[dontblowit]

10:15 AM on 05/30/2011

With all the trillions of dollars in profits they've been getting from the US tax payers for their products of death you'd think they would have spent a bit on protecting their computer network. Shows you how greed and doesn't benefit anyone.

[BlackBuddha]

05:38 AM on 05/30/2011

Lockheed Martin was successful in its defense against the attack by using sharks with laser beams.

[Oilygarch]

08:49 AM on 05/30/2011

That sounds more like its Engineering Leadership Development Program. ;-P

[SwarmingBeeTheory]

04:27 AM on 05/30/2011

What a coincidence that Lockeed Martin just happens to be on the threshold of adopting quantum processing technology;

http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/29/d-wave-sells-first-commercial-quantum-computer-to-lockheed-marti/#disqus_thread

Nothing we have to concern ourselves with, just things like quantum teleportation, event prediction and causality, the proof of multiple concurrent realities, time travel, etc. Whatever it is, it's a long way off, and you can be sure the gold ol USof A is going to be there first, just like we are with all things in science!

Oh. But wait, one of the other aspects of quantum processing is the ability to crack just about any secure network currently in existence. Probably has nothing to do with Lockheed getting hacked, it's just a coincidence that the Chinese have been on this;

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2016687,00.html

http://thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/asia-mainmenu-33/4567-chinese-cyber-warfare-advance-in-teleportation

Imagine is we devoted even a fraction of this effort on scientific innovation in the alternate energy sector? There are tremendous possibilities for replacing the archaic and epically failed practice of burning coal, or the equally insane logic that has us using lethally toxic nuclear fission to boil water to make steam to turn a turbine to generate electricity.

http://news.discovery.com/space/teleporting-energy.html

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-12/wikileaked-cables-beijing-reveal-chinas-pursuit-fusion-power-teleportation

[European1919]

03:23 AM on 05/30/2011

Lockeed Martin is a privately owned spying company which not only gathers information on US citizens, but thanks to British politicians also on the UK public. They are after all doing the census and somehow I just do not believe them, when they say that they'll gather the information without using/retaining it for their own shadowy purposes. That sort of information has no place in foreign MIC hands.
So any attack on them, cyber or otherwise, is just fine by me.

[gfm975]

11:34 PM on 05/29/2011

liarfire, are you for real? apparently, you've had some serious koolaid.

[Cratewasher]

11:25 PM on 05/29/2011

Let's hope business falls off for them.
The world would be a better place.

[liarfire]

10:24 PM on 05/29/2011

Lockheed guilty of geek porn breech..wrench catalog missing! found in bathroom...

[500 a]

10:16 PM on 05/29/2011

I've read that China's military has an entire city of super hackers devoted to cyber-attacks worldwide. They are launching attacks all the time, all day, all night, non-stop.

[1776 or 1984]

10:20 PM on 05/29/2011

I heard that your post, emails, facebook posts, tweets, cell phone calls, and landline calls are no longer private and likely surveilled by Lockheed Martin. Am I wrong?

[hagagaga]

10:33 PM on 05/29/2011

yes

[BoulderIntellectual]

11:08 PM on 05/29/2011

No, remember the demo-rats have extended it.

More of 0bama continuing the policies of Dubya.

Darn the luck.

[Pollytiques]

10:24 AM on 05/30/2011

Well they have plenty of money because of the tax breaks and greed of businesses moving the jobs to China.

[liarfire]

10:13 PM on 05/29/2011

wag the mouse.

[acorus]

09:59 PM on 05/29/2011

funny how i'm not in the least concerned about lockeed's privacy being abrogated, much more actually concerned about us u.s. citizen's constitutionally guaranteed privacy being throttled, by none other than the primary gargantuan surveillance apparatus: aka the nsa, whom are sifting through terrabytes every second, this message included, by the time i write it, it will have been already duly noted, and recorded, so here's my message to the nsa! fug off!

[liarfire]

10:08 PM on 05/29/2011

Agreed...they can stick their surveillance right up their mindless jar head @SSSS....

[hagagaga]

10:34 PM on 05/29/2011

The NSA tend not to be "jarheads" (a term meaning "US Marine"). You've been watching too much Chuck.

[Virtual Lib]

09:48 PM on 05/29/2011

Tomorrows headline will read.......Lockheed Lied About Breached Sensitive Information.

[liarfire]

09:27 PM on 05/29/2011

The Probability of lies by the government and Lockheed are quite high..past history would indicate a 90 percent chance their side of the story is a fabrication.

[1776 or 1984]

09:47 PM on 05/29/2011

I simply don't believe this C r A p about cyber-warf­­are.

I don't trust MIC and Homeland Security crotchrubb­­ers more than I can throw an anvil.

This bu//shi/ is very likely made up so they can keep on taking half of our taxes under a new pretense.

PLUS, PNAC has this cyber-warf­are c r a p all laid out in their manifesto "Rebuildin­­g America's Defenses," which the bureaucrac­­ies/admin­i­stration­s/c­ongres­ses continue to implement because the Pentagon is the center of power in this Empire.