The Commerce Department is reporting a sustained attack against one of its computer networks and, for the second time in recent months, the attack has been traced back to China. The Bureau of Industry and Security, whose computers were the the the target of the attacks, explained the threat to employees in an e-mail as "...several successful attempts to attack unattended BIS workstations during the overnight hours." A subsequent inter-office communication warned "It has become clear that Internet access in itself is a vulnerability that we cannot mitigate. We have tried incremental steps and they have proven insufficient." The workstations were reportedly penetrated with a rootkit.

The GAO had issued warnings of just such an occurrence over five years ago, which the folks at Commerce seemingly chose to ignore. You can avoid being a victim of ignorance by heeding this shameless plug and visiting the good folks in our Security Forum.