The Washington Post reports: Federal agents notified more than 3,000 U.S. companies last year that their computer systems had been hacked, White House officials have told industry executives, marking the first time the government has revealed how often it tipped off the private sector to cyberintrusions.
The alerts went to firms large and small, from local banks to major defense contractors to national retailers such as Target, which suffered a breach last fall that led to the theft of tens of millions of Americans’ credit card and personal data, according to government and industry officials.
“Three thousand companies is astounding,” said James A. Lewis, a senior fellow and cyberpolicy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The problem is as big or bigger than we thought.”
The number reflects only a fraction of the true scale of cyberintrusions into the private sector by criminal groups and foreign governments and their proxies, particularly in China and Eastern Europe. The estimated cost to U.S. companies and consumers is up to $100 billion annually, analysts say. [Continue reading…]
How did the governmental agent (which did all this warning) know about the 3000 intrusions? Was it from confessions of “perps”, or did they learn of them by using their own intrusive cyber-technology (used against the computers of the “perps” or against the computers of the 3000 companies? In either case, if the government used cyber-intrusion to learn of these 3000 instances of hacking, did they go through the motions of legality before doing the cyber-intrusion? Or shall we just be thankful that Big Brother is watching?