The level and sophistication of this attack on the Department of Defense's systems suggests that professionals conducted this attack with significant resources at their disposal and an interest in the national security secrets of the United States. The data mining operation was so successful that, while detected, still managed to make-off with a significant amount of information.

Since the attack, the United States responded in a number of critical ways. Almost immediately upon learning of the threat, the Pentagon required all defense employees to change sensitive passwords, though this requirement was even hacked by the attackers, allowing them to change their tactics accordingly (Vistica, 1999; Bridis, 2001). Other, longer-range responses will hopefully have more success in preventing future attacks such as the Moonlight Maze attack. For instance, the assistant secretary of defense for command, control, communications and intelligence -- Arthur Money -- stated that the Pentagon's primary unclassified computer system...
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