U.S. Geological Survey Network got Infected with Malware

A federal employee has viewed over 9,000 pornographic webpages at his work place thus infecting a government network of U.S. with malware.

As per the report of an inspector general, a federal employee has infected a government network of U.S. with malware after watching over 9,000 pornographic webpages at his work place.

The employee's action got discovered during one of the security audits of computer network at U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), as per the report published on October 17. The employee was having an "extensive history of visiting adult pornography websites" on one of the work computer, many out of those websites were of Russian origin and was contained with malware which spread onto the network of USGS. As posted by ndtv.com on 31 October, 2018, the U.S. Geological Survey, a government agency, is the one that performs analysis of country's landscape and look for the hazards which may threaten the natural resources.

The porn-surfing employee was believed to have visited the porn sites on his U.S. Geological Survey laptop, downloading malware and pictures along the way, which also includes saving them. The investigation revealed that thousands of pornographic webpages, which were infected with malware, were browsed by this U.S. civil servant at
his work station. The investigation further found that several porn images which were transferred to his Android smartphone and a USB device were also filled with malware.

The malware then entered onto the Earth Resources Observation and Science Center's network. Fortunately, it is an organization that does not hosts classified materials. The malware form was not revealed, with OIG only saying that the malware is used often to disable or damage computers or steal the confidential information at the time of
infecting the system.

To prevent this type of incidents as described in inspector general's report in the future, the IG's office has recommended the USGS to "enforce a strong blacklist policy" that would block the "rogue" websites on the computers which are government-owned. "An ongoing effort to detect and block known pornographic web sites, and web sites
with suspicious origins, will likely enhance preventative countermeasures," the report reads.

Mike McKee, ObserveIT Inc.'s chief executive officer, said that cyberattacks have become most common, cheapest, stealthiest and easiest way to infiltrate the governments. He further said that "this fact coupled with the shortcomings of human beings creates a vulnerable infrastructure for bad actors to attack. At the end of the day, data doesn't leak itself, it takes people".

» SPAMfighter News - 11/2/2018