China Makes 'Most Successful Cyber Attack Ever' on the Pentagon

China's recent penetration of government systems in Germany raised some eyebrows. Now sources at the Pentagon say that China's army made a similar successful attack back in June -- on American defense systems.

According to a report in today's Financial Times, Pentagon officials are now acknowledging that the People's Liberation Army launched "the most successful cyber attack ever" on U.S. defense systems less than two months ago.

"The PLA has demonstrated the ability to conduct attacks that disable our system... and the ability in a conflict situation to re-enter and disrupt on a very large scale,” according to a former official.

The PLA penetrated the networks of U.S. defense companies and think-tanks after probing for weaknesses for several months, the report states. The Pentagon took the networks down for more than a week while the attack continued.

The Pentagon is still trying to figure out how the hackers got into the network and what data might have been compromised. Most of the downloaded information so far appears to be of the unclassified variety.

— Tim Wilson, Site Editor, Dark Reading