Cyber Security History

Origin of National Cybersecurity Policy in the US

It all starts with President Ronald Reagan when he watched the movie WarGames.

Operation Clipper Chip

Developed by the NSA which allowed the government to put a chip like device on landlines to spy on communication

Operation Solar Sunrise

Two teenage kids from California exploited a known vulnerability in the DoD operating system and launched a series of attacks which followed the classic pattern of

1. probing to determine if the vulnerability exists,
2. exploiting the vulnerability
3. implanting a program (sniffer) to gather data
4. returning later to retrieve the collected data.

Operation Moonlight Maze

Supposedly and very likely launched by Russia, or at the time Soviet Union, which used proxy computers to start probably the first-ever cybersecurity warfare

Operation Buckshoot Yankee

A USB drive containing a virus was inserted into a computer that was connected to the DoD network, maybe by China.

Operation Thunder Storm

US military hacked the radars used by Saddam Hussein and fed them false information