WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Past patterns may point to China, but top investigators say they will never know for sure who mounted a “significant” cyberattack against Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon’s No. 1 arms supplier.

Lockheed, which is also the government’s top information technology provider, said on Sunday it was a “frequent target of adversaries around the world.”

The company has not disclosed which of its business units was targeted, but people with experience plugging holes after such strikes said that cyberspies likely sought trade secrets or weapons-related data.

The Bethesda, Maryland-based company did not respond to a request to clarify whom it deemed adversaries, and whether it suspected a foreign state in the digital assault it said it had detected “almost immediately” on May 21.

Lockheed said it had countered with stepped-up security measures and that no customer, program or employee personal data has been compromised in the “significant and tenacious attack” on its information systems network.

China has generally emerged as a prime suspect when it comes to keyboard-launched espionage against U.S. interests, although the Pentagon says more than 100 foreign intelligence groups have been trying to pierce U.S. networks.

“China’s government, the Chinese Communist Party, and Chinese individuals and organizations continue to hack into American computer systems and networks as well as those of foreign entities and governments,” the bipartisan U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in its 2010 annual report to Congress.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Past patterns may point to China, but top investigators say they will never know for sure who mounted a “significant” cyberattack against Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon’s No. 1 arms supplier.

Lockheed, which is also the U.S. government’s top information technology provider, said on Sunday it was a “frequent target of adversaries around the world.”

The company has not disclosed which of its business units was targeted, but people with experience plugging holes after such strikes said that cyberspies likely sought trade secrets or weapons-related data.

The Bethesda, Maryland-based company did not respond to a request to clarify whom it deemed adversaries, and whether it suspected a foreign state in the digital assault it said it had detected “almost immediately” on May 21.

Lockheed said it had countered with stepped-up security measures and that no customer, program or employee personal data has been compromised in the “significant and tenacious attack” on its information systems network.

China has generally emerged as a prime suspect when it comes to keyboard-launched espionage against U.S. interests, although the Pentagon says more than 100 foreign intelligence groups have been trying to pierce U.S. networks.

“China’s government, the Chinese Communist Party, and Chinese individuals and organizations continue to hack into American computer systems and networks as well as those of foreign entities and governments,” the bipartisan U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in its 2010 annual report to the U.S. Congress.

WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) – Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the U.S. government’s top information technology provider, said on Sunday that a “tenacious” cyberattack on its network last weekend was part of a pattern of frequent attacks on it from around the world.

“The fact is, in this new reality, we are a frequent target of adversaries around the world,” Sondra Barbour, the company’s chief information officer, said in a memorandum to employees.

Eight days after the “significant and tenacious” May 21 attack was detected and countered, Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed is still working around the clock to restore employee access to the network while maintaining the highest level of security, Barbour said.

Lockheed’s first response included “proactively” shutting down the company’s virtual private network, or VPN, she said. A VPN is a secure way of connecting to a private network using the Internet or any public network to carry network data privately through encryption.

Other counter measures included resetting all user passwords, upgrading remote access SecurID tokens and adding a new level of security to the remote access network log-on procedure, Barbour said.

Lockheed said on Saturday night that it had warded off the attack after detecting it “almost immediately.” It said it had taken aggressive actions to protect systems and data. No compromise of customer, program or employees’ personal data had occurred, the company said.

Lockheed is the Pentagon’s top supplier by sales. It builds the F-16, F-22 and F-35 fighter aircraft as well as the Aegis naval combat system and THAAD missile defense.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lockheed Martin Corp., the government’s top information technology provider, said on Saturday it had thwarted “a significant and tenacious attack” on its information systems network a week ago but was still working to restore employee access.

No customer, program or employee personal data was compromised thanks to “almost immediate” protective action taken after the attack was detected May 21, Jennifer Whitlow, a company spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement.

She said the company, the world’s biggest aerospace company and the Pentagon’s No. 1 supplier by sales, was working around the clock to restore employee access to the targeted network while maintaining the highest security level.

The Defense Department said in statement late Saturday night that it was working with Lockheed to determine the scope of the attack.

The incident’s impact on the department is “minimal and we don’t expect any adverse effect,” Air Force Lieutenant Colonel April Cunningham said by email.

She declined to specify the nature of the impact, saying that as a matter of policy, the department does not comment on operational matters.

The Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, said that it and the Defense Department had offered to help curb the risk from the incident.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon is planning to help Israel buy four more Iron Dome short-range anti-rocket batteries, the head of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said on Wednesday.

“In our budget, we have a proposal to assist with procurement of four more batteries,” Army Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly, the agency’s director, told the U.S. Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee.

The batteries consist of a mobile air defense system with a radar-guided interceptor missile launched from a truck-sized firing platform.

O’Reilly was referring to fiscal 2011 funding of $203.8 million added last June at the request of President Barack Obama, agency spokesman Richard Lehner said in an email. The goal was to spur production and deployment of the system, the first direct U.S. investment in the project.

Israel began deploying $50-million Iron Dome units two months ago to counter Katyusha-style rockets fired at population centers from Palestinian territory. The first was set up near Beersheba, a southern city twice hit by rockets during a March flare-up of cross-border violence.

A second was deployed last month to the coastal city of Ashkelon, north of the Gaza Strip ruled by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

On April 7, the system successfully intercepted a rocket from Gaza for the first time, followed by at least seven other intercepts, the Israeli military said. Its development was spurred by the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip war against Hamas in 2008 and 2009.

WASHINGTON, May 24 (Reuters) – The White House on Tuesday threatened to veto defense legislation unless U.S. lawmakers remove conditions on a nuclear arms treaty with Russia and provisions stopping suspected militants from being brought to the United States for trial.

A White House statement also threatened to veto the legislation — the defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2012 — over provisions that could revive an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that was being developed by General Electric Co (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Rolls-Royce Group Plc (RR.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

The engine being used in early production models is built by Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp (UTX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

The defense bill will be debated this week in the House of Representatives, where the Republicans have a majority.

But it must also pass the Democratic majority in the Senate, which could take months, before going to Democratic President Barack Obama for his signature into law or his veto.

The White House statement said the administration wanted to work with Congress to address its concerns.

It said the administration strongly objects to parts of the bill setting “onerous conditions” on its ability to implement the new START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.

WASHINGTON, May 24 (Reuters) – The Pentagon is very encouraged by Wall Street’s response to aerospace companies and arms makers, even as U.S. defense spending flattens, the top U.S. weapons buyer said on Tuesday.

“We are monitoring the health of our industry as it is seen by the financial community,” said Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. “And the information there is very encouraging to us.”

Carter made his remarks at a Capitol Hill luncheon co-sponsored by the U.S. Senate’s Aerospace Caucus and the Aerospace Industries Association, the arms makers’ chief trade and lobbying group.

He spoke moments before outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in a major policy address, said his overarching goal was to “preserve a U.S. military capable of meeting crucial national security priorities, even if fiscal pressure requires reductions in that force’s size.”

Carter said the industry would be making adjustments to cope with a projected spending slowdown now that a post-Sept. 11, 2001, spurt — which nearly doubled the Pentagon’s base budget — was ending under fiscal pressure to trim the U.S. deficit.

“A strong, technologically vibrant and financially successful defense industry is in the national interest,” Carter said. “And importantly, the government’s interest is not short term but long-term, like those of long-term investors.”

As a result, the Defense Department will promote policies and actions “that provide for the long-term innovation, efficiency, profitability and productivity growth in our industry,” he said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lockheed Martin Corp’s (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) increasingly costly F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is testing congressional support, with top Senators calling on the Pentagon to offer alternatives.

Ashton Carter, the Pentagon’s top arms buyer, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that buying more than 2,400 F-35s would cost twice as much in real terms as originally estimated, absent significant changes.

This was “unacceptable and unaffordable,” he told the panel, while voicing confidence the government would succeed in cutting excess costs in the coming months and years.

The multinational F-35 family of fighters is the Pentagon’s priciest arms purchase, most recently projected to total some $382 billion over the coming two decades for 2,443 aircraft.

Three F-35 models are being built for the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and allied countries.

Committee chairman Carl Levin said new estimates of “life-cycle” F-35 costs, including development, operation and maintenance, now top $1 trillion. The committee has been a strong supporter of the program, but he asked Carter to present alternatives as a “backup” option within a week.

“People should not conclude that we will be willing to continue that kind of support without regard to increased costs resulting from a lack of focus on affordability,” the Michigan Democrat said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Army recruits have had poorer diets and are less fit than past generations, making them more prone to injury from heavier loads lugged in combat, its top general told a Senate panel on Wednesday.

“It’s really the generation of Americans that have this problem,” said Chief of Staff General Martin Dempsey. “But it’s exacerbated by the load we ask them to bear.”

He singled out poor eating habits plus carbonated drinks as a contributing factor to “musculoskeletal” injuries that have been a leading cause of U.S. medical evacuations from Iraq and Afghanistan. Such injuries typically include fractures, tendinitis and connective tissue disorders but not combat injuries.

Dempsey was responding to concerns from U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, a World War Two veteran who won the Medal of Honor, the highest U.S. decoration for military valor.

Inouye, 86, fretted that individual U.S. troops’ combat gear was pushing toward 125 pounds (56.7 kg) compared with, as he put it, the no-frills load he carried as an infantryman.

“I feel for them because I believe my combat kit never exceeded 20 pounds (9 kg), including my rifle, boots and helmet, grenades and all the ammo I carried,” the Hawaii Democrat said at a hearing on the Army’s fiscal 2012 budget request at the Appropriations Defense subcommittee he chairs.

“I hope we can lighten the load and lighten the injuries,” added Inouye, who lost his right arm in a battle against German forces.

LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Britain’s BAE Systems Plc agreed to pay up to $79 million in U.S. government fines for more than 2,500 alleged breaches of rules governing military exports, the State Department said on Tuesday.

The civil settlement is the biggest in the department’s history. It ends long-running corruption investigations into the company, Europe’s biggest arms maker by sales, on both sides of the Atlantic.

The department cleared BAE’s fast-growing U.S. unit and its subsidiaries of all charges against the parent company, based in Farnborough, outside London.

But it said a lack of full cooperation from the parent had left it “unable to assess fully the potential harm to U.S. national security” from the unauthorized resale of U.S. weapons and technology know-how to more than a dozen countries.

The U.S. subsidiary, BAE Systems Inc, accounts for about 52 percent of the company’s worldwide sales and is among the Pentagon’s top 10 suppliers. It operates a separate export compliance program under a special security pact that governs its dealings inside and outside the United States.

The State Department said it found a total of 2,591 BAE arms-control breaches after the parent company’s criminal conviction last year for violations of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act and International Traffic in Arms Regulations, which frame U.S. arms-control laws.

For instance, the department said, BAE failed to get a required U.S. nod to engage in “brokering activities” involving U.S. systems or sub-systems incorporated on the EF-2000 Eurofighter Typhoon. Since 1998, BAE has marketed or exported the fighter to Australia, Czech Republic, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Austria, Denmark, Japan and Switzerland, the department said.