Friday, February 25, 2011

Hackers' Challenge

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary, Dennis Richardson, has laid out an open challenge to hackers who want to try their skills at cracking firewalls the Australian government and intelligence agencies believe represent world class digital security.

ABC News :
The Department of Foreign Affairs has reviewed its computer security systems following the WikiLeaks saga to ensure classified documents are kept safe.

DFAT secretary Dennis Richardson has told a Senate estimates hearing that he is satisfied such a breach would not happen to the Australian Government.

"The breach in the US system - it beggars belief how they even had the arrangement they had," he said.

"In terms of the way our classified systems are set up, it would be very difficult to copy what happened in the WikiLeaks case."

Difficult, but not impossible.

The only truly safe digital file is one stored on a laptop or device that has no internet access and no CD or USB drives. Even then...