A top Pentagon official has admitted that a massive amount of data related to new defence technologies were hacked earlier this year.
The revelation came as the defence department unveiled its new guidelines for dealing with threats in cyberspace.
But critics say the new strategy doesn't have enough bite to counter those types of breaches, much less the ones that could potentially cripple a nation.
With hackers trying millions of times each day to breech defence networks, it has to be seen whether Washington has the political will to take more aggressive measures to protect its most sensitive secrets.
Al Jazeera's Rosiland Jordan reports from Washington.
