US Defence Department cyber attacked

[Alpine]

1,500 computers off-line


THE US DEPARTMENT of Defence said it took 1,500 of its computers off -line after a cyber attack this week.


Red-faced Pentagon officials have released few details about the attack which happened on Wednesday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the computer systems would be working again soon.

Gates tried to play down the attack saying that the Pentagon sees hundreds of attacks a day. He rckoned this one didn't shop any department operations because employees just switched to their Blackberries.

The computers were shut down when the penetration of the system was detected. The big man himself was entirely unaffected by the attack. Gates said that he never uses email because he was too low tech.

More here.