The federal reserves $ on the net now

This seems absolutley insane :


"August 15, 2004 -- With little fanfare, the Federal Reserve will begin transferring the nation's money supply over an Internet-based system this month — a move critics say could open the U.S.'s banking system to cyber threats.

The Fed moves about $1.8 trillion a day on a closed, stand-alone computer network. But soon it will switch to a system called FedLine Advantage, a Web-based technology.

Proponents say the system is more efficient and flexible. The current system is outdated, using DOS — Microsoft's predecessor to the Windows operating system.

But security experts say the threat of outside access is too big a risk.

"The Fed is now going to be vulnerable in two distinct ways. A hacker could break in to the Fed's network and have full access to the system, or a hacker might not have complete access but enough to cause a denial or disruptions of service," said George Kurtz, co-author of "Hacking Exposed" and CEO of Foundstone, an Internet security company."


from here: (yeahh the nypost is a rag but it seems legit)

http://www.nypost.com/business/18671.htm


The l33t black hats of the world should be dancing in the aisles after hearing this ..

That is insane why don't they spend a little bit of money updating their "DOS" machines and enhancing that network rather then putting it up for grabs to anyone on the net. They are just setting themselves up for an embarassing time

They don't have to be attacked directly for a deliterious effect to be experienced..... Some of the worms have had an effect on the net by the sheer volume of their scanning traffic.

So now... If you can slow down the net you can slow down commerce....... Stupid!!!!

Here's some pdf's I've found

http://www.frbservices.org/FedFocus/...edFocus504.pdf

Fed reserve newsletter, apparently they have been rolling this out since May

http://frbservices.org/OperatingCirc...CCooLetter.pdf

Some industry jargon.

http://www.frbservices.org/Electroni...edline_web.jsp

The Federal Reserves page on FedLine



So you have a secure system that works (albeit archaic) using a OS that, while outdated, might be secure because of its outdatedness (?)

Would it have been more work to upgrade the existing network, and speaking of which, how where they networking DOS machines? (Securely)

*shrug*

Hate to tell you all this but the fed has been online for a while now. They are moving wire transfers to the net. Many transactions could already be handled via http. It may seem stupid but there are a couple of factors. 1, the encryption is hard ware based and there are strict rules on getting one. 2 they monitor the piss out of everything and 3 large transactions require call backs to confim. Feel better? :)

//EDIT they don't network DOS machines, it's a DOS terminal used ONLY for Fedline (tm) access via modem that connects to a main frame at the Federal Reserve. Fedline for the web uses a vpn to tunnel into the same connection. Oh and there is still a dial up backup because banks will lose internet connections from time to time and wire transfers CANNOT wait, for obvious reasons.