German Parliament mulls replacing entire IT system after hacking attack

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BERLIN — German lawmakers are mulling whether to replace their entire computer system after a sophisticated hacking attack against Parliament's IT network.

Parliamentary officials said last month that specialists were working to fix the security problem, but German media reported this week that large amounts of data are still being siphoned out by unknown attackers.

Lawmakers are meeting Thursday to learn more about the extent of the problem and debate measures that would allow Parliament to continue its work.

Opposition parties object to a proposal for Germany's domestic intelligence and IT security agencies to investigate the problem, saying this could threaten sensitive parliamentary work and breach the division of powers.

http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/story/d1f44dd1940a4173bb5741ed52962e13/EU--Germany-Parliament-Hacked

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1. Just don't buy American IT equipment made in China.

Or maybe that is the current problem.

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2. Hard to say, there was a story blaming it on Russia.

Some of the Germans think NSA.

[Renew Deal]

3. The Germans have been in the news in the past for being heavily Linux and open source

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4. I would be leery of open source in a high-security context.

You need to know EXACTLY what code you have on the machine for that, with sources.

I like closed platforms for that, one of the BSDs might do. But I run Linux on the web all day, I've had no trouble.

And the real problem is that since they started putting hacks in firmware, the OS is not necessarily the problem.