Investigators: Homeland Security computers hacked

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Hackers compromised dozens of Department of Homeland Security computers, moving sensitive information to Chinese-language Web sites, congressional investigators said Monday. Investigators pointed a finger at a government contractor, saying the firm hired to protect DHS computers tried to hide the incidents from the department. The FBI is investigating the incidents, a congressional staffer said, and two members of Congress have asked the department's inspector general to also launch an investigation.

"The results of our [committee] investigation suggest that the department is the victim not only of cyber attacks initiated by foreign entities, but of incompetent and possibly illegal activity by the contractor charged with maintaining security on its networks," . . . The lawmakers said committee investigators found dozens of DHS computers were compromised and the incidents "were not noticed until months after the initial attacks." The extent of the damage is unclear, but a House Homeland Security Committee staff member said the hackers "took significant amounts of information." "We know where it [the information] was taken from, but we don't know what was taken. We only know how many megabytes was taken," the staff member said. "Everything was on the LAN A, which was an unclassified network. To the best of our knowledge there was no classified information [taken]." The Web site where the information was moved was described only as a "Web hosting service that connects to Chinese Web sites." The committee declined to say whether they were Chinese government sites . . . [Read More]

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