FINAL WORD
With that , let ’ s take a look at four notable attacks over the past 25 plus years and what we can learn from them ( keep in mind , this list is not exhaustive and is just a sampling ).
1998 : Solar Sunrise
In February of 1998 , three teenagers ( two from California and one from Israel ) attacked the Department of Defense ( DoD ) computers in a monthlong series of hacks targeting a well-known flaw in the Solaris operating system .
Other arms of the government were also attacked , including the Air Force , NASA , the Navy , the Pentagon and more . When successful , the attacker was able to access sensitive data by installing a trojan and sniffer on the networks .
Thankfully , the attackers supposedly only broke into unclassified systems at the government organizations .
Ultimately , the authorities learned the attacks were the work of three teenagers , two from the US and an Israeli teen who ended up serving some time in prison for the attack .
This likely led governments from around the world to become more serious about cybersecurity , with the American government developing intrusion prevention systems such as EINSTEIN five years later .
While the threat actors were more likely just curious teenagers and not malicious state-sponsored attackers , this early government hack proved that even the US government ’ s information systems were vulnerable and not as impenetrable as once thought .
2000 : Love Bug ( ILOVEYOU WORM )
In 2000 , a college student in the Philippines emailed the ILOVEYOU worm ( sometimes referred to as the Love Bug worm or Love Letter for you ) affecting
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