Lockheed Martin Confirms It Came Under Attack
Defense contractor Lockheed Martin confirmed tonight that the network problems it has been been contending with during the last several days, are the result of a “significant and tenacious attack” carried out against its network.
Context & Ripple Effects
Lockheed Martin’s disclosure gives a named-company confirmation to the report of breaches at U.S. defense contractors published a day earlier. It also fits a longer record of attacks on U.S. military laboratories in 2007, placing defense networks rather than consumer systems at the center of the security concern.
The reported network disruptions make the incident operational as well as reputational for Lockheed Martin: the company is dealing with a sustained intrusion, not an isolated technical fault.
First-order effects
- Lockheed Martin must treat its multi-day network problems as an active security incident, shifting attention to containment and restoration of affected network operations.
Second-order effects
- Other U.S. defense contractors implicated by the May 28 reporting face greater pressure to assess whether their own network disruptions or credentials indicate related compromise activity.
Third-order effects
- The combination of military-lab attacks and contractor breaches points to defense-sector cybersecurity becoming a continuity requirement for firms whose networks support government work, rather than a back-office IT function.
The trend: Cybersecurity is becoming an operational resilience issue across the defense supply base as persistent attacks move from military institutions to their commercial contractors.