Chances of being the victim of a cyber attack continue to rise
While the military has had its share of web issues, it’s still safe to say that its official websites are more secure than your average page. Although there’s no way to keep 100% of hackers out of any system short of pulling the plug completely, the military does go beyond your average page in terms of security, meaning the breaching of Army.mil should ring alarm bells in your own 
organization.
The National Journal’s Dustin Volz reports:
Hackers affiliated with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad swiftly claimed responsibility for knocking the U.S. Army’s website offline Monday afternoon.
The Syrian Electronic Army took credit for the hack of Army.mil on Twitter, posting a screenshot of an image of the site with the pop-up message reading: “Your commanders admit they are training the people they have sent you to die fighting.”
In a statement, the Pentagon acknowledged an intrusion had occured, though it did not confirm the source.
“Today an element of the Army.mil service provider’s content was compromised,” Army Brig. Gen. Malcolm Frost said. “After this came to our attention, the Army took appropriate preventive measures to ensure there was no breach of Army data by taking down the website temporarily.”
Considering that military pages are being hacked on a regular basis, sticking to an, “it won’t happen to me” attitude is downright silly. Include the very real possibility of facing a cyber attack in your crisis management plans, because the chances you’ll turn to them in a real-life scenario are increasing by the day.
[Editor’s note: Our colleague and frequent contributor Andy Russell brought this topic to our attention, and you can do the same if you find something you feel might make a good fit for our blog. Feel free to send your own post suggestions to erik@bernsteincrisismanagement.com!]
Erik & Jonathan Bernstein
www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com