China Suspected in Massive Cyberattack on U.N, U.S. Gov't, China is suspected a record setting hack, which affected many nation Options

[myolinewu]

Intel Corp. (INTC) subsidiary McAfee, has just gone public [declassified report] with an incredible study into what it says is the world's biggest organized computer hack in history. The attack, which it dubs "Operation Shady RAT" (RAT stands for remote access tool), began in mid-2006 and was still ongoing at the start of this year. And unsurprisingly, China -- arguably the world's foremost cyber-superpower -- is suspected as the guilty party.

I. U.S. and Others Get "Raped and Pillaged"

McAfee's vice president of threat research, Dmitri Alperovitch, in an interview with Reuters, comments, "Companies and government agencies are getting raped and pillaged every day. They are losing economic advantage and national secrets to unscrupulous competitors. This is the biggest transfer of wealth in terms of intellectual property in history. The scale at which this is occurring is really, really frightening."

In his report he describes how a team of savvy hackers organized by a "state actor" infiltrated 72 carefully selected government and corporate systems around the world and began rapidly stealing valuable information.

Government victims included United States, Taiwan, India, South Korea, Vietnam, and Canada. A number of multinational organizations including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the World Anti-Doping Agency, and the United Nations. Numerous defense contractors and high-tech companies were also infiltrated in the U.S. and abroad.

In one of the highest profile attacks -- the infiltration of the United Nations' servers, the attacker gained access to systems belonging to the secretariat in Geneva in 2008 and then proceeded to lurk for two years, stealing valuable classified documents.

The longest attack appears to have targeted the Olympic committee of an unnamed South Asian nation, last 28 months. Many of the attacks were far briefer lasting only a month.

The sophisticated plot was discovered when McAfee researchers reviewing the server logs on affected U.S. contractors discovered that they were all communicating with common command-and-control servers in the unnamed attacker nation.

Mr. Alperovitch recalls the shock at this discovery, writing, "Even we were surprised by the enormous diversity of the victim organizations and were taken aback by the audacity of the perpetrators. What is happening to all this data ... is still largely an open question. However, if even a fraction of it is used to build better competing products or beat a competitor at a key negotiation (due to having stolen the other team's playbook), the loss represents a massive economic threat."

II. The Red Dragon

Unsurprisingly most suspect China, given who was attacked and the nation's long history of cyberaggression [1][2][3][4][5][6][7].

Neither China or McAfee have officially commented on this possibility. But the timing lines up remarkably.

The attacks on the IOC and Olympic committee were executed in 2008, right before the Beijing Olympics. Given China's obsessive interest in topping its foreign competitors in the medal counts, there's a clear motive for the hacks, as they could have filled in secret details on when the Olympic officials planned to conduct drug tests. In theory China could have used the data to game the system, obfuscating steroid use or other types of cheating.

The attacks also were very focused on southeast Asia. South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan -- key economic rivals of China were all targeted.

In Taiwan's case, the attack may have served a double purpose, as China views Taiwan as a rebel province and has long looked for ways to undermine it economically and politically.

Jim Lewis, a cyber expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, states, "Everything points to China. It could be the Russians, but there is more that points to China than Russia."

One unnamed briefed expert affirms that the classified version of the information McAfee presented points to China.

III. Preying on the Weak

If the attacks were indeed the work of the Chinese government or its contractors, it scored a massive win economically. It's unknown what if any sort of punishment can be brought against the nation, as even if the evidence points to China, in such matters it's hard to conclusively prove the origin of an attack.

Further, many of the affected nations like the U.S. owe vast amounts of debt to the Chinese government and depend on China to support their rare mineral resource and manufacturing needs.

Many view China's recent actions as the strong of cyberspace picking on the weak. The U.S. is among those that has been perceived as a "cyberweakling".

Vijay Mukhi, a cyber-expert based in India, states, "I'm not surprised because that's what China does, they are gradually dominating the cyberworld. I would call it child's play (for a hacker to get access to Indian government data) ... I would say we're in the stone age."

The report, which coincided with the annual Black Hat security convention in Las Vegas, took many by surprise.

Taiwanese officials said they were not aware of being part of a broader attack, though they said they were aware of many attacks against their government servers. U.N. officials also reported being unaware of the intrusion, though they were investigating. And the government of India refused to comment on whether it was aware of the attack on its government servers.

Japan seemed the least surprised, indicating knowledge of the attack, while emphasizing the uncertainty about who was behind the attacks. They say that they are conducting and investigation and working on "finalizing some guidelines. We aim to raise the security level as a whole and build a partnership between private sector organizations where information can be shared to prevent such attacks."

McAfee has informed all 72 companies who were attacked. In its public version of the report, it redacted the affected corporate parties' names, though it mentioned what nation and what business sector they were in.

Full details of the record setting assault are still not available, and may never be available. If McAfee is to be believed, though, the financial impact is likely enormous. The attack likely puts the affected governments, including the U.S. in panic mode. The pressing question -- how to improve their security so these attacks don't happen, and how to bring to justice an attacker who wields tremendous international financial power, should a breach occur.

http://www.dailytech.com/War+20+China+Susp...rticle22340.htm

[orange peel]

血口喷人

[fireplant]

Like the scam doctor who obsessively tells you how sick you are.

[InitialDJay]

these kind of reports that are speculated and alleged-base accusation tend to be flaw in nature. china, also, said they have been subjected to cyber attack, so i guess every country is attacked by alien then.

[UnZipped]

Its their immature wet dream to pit the world against china. China this china that. China watching u pee. China been stealing ur homework. Let the stupid believe every single word.

[DOUBLEMINT]

Of course we are suspected,who else would they be suspecting.

[kieshin]

do you guys remember that US just renew their law awhile ago, that they can declare war against any country that they suspect has attacked their network

so if their economy keeps going down, this is their last resort, war against china, and this could be use as reason to legitimate their attack just like iraq...

This post has been edited by kieshin: Aug 3 2011, 11:48 PM

[ElapsePride]

do you guys remember that US just renew their law awhile ago, that they can declare war against any country that they suspect has attacked their network

so if their economy keeps going down, this is their last resort, war against china, and this could be use as reason to legitimate their attack just like iraq...

I somewhat believe they will do so eventually. they won't give us 100 years to rise up and stand against them, their strategy is very clear

[devils666]

Haha all the countries who got "attacked" are conveniently China's enemies (according to the US). First they talk about how China lacks innovation and creativity, then they are blaming China for being such "innovative" hackers and attacking the world.

I feel like I've read N. Korean propaganda after reading this article - only this is US propaganda....

[InitialDJay]

do you guys remember that US just renew their law awhile ago, that they can declare war against any country that they suspect has attacked their network

so if their economy keeps going down, this is their last resort, war against china, and this could be use as reason to legitimate their attack just like iraq...

but there's too much risks in an all-out war with china. it will definitely lead to world war III. this time, more deadly and more destruction. the US's mainland won't be free from bombing and possibly nuclear destruction. a war on land, china would win. air and sea, US would win. that if this is only a 1 on 1 war.

[phop]

If you guys ever study computer science, you will know that its 100% possible to hack any machine, computers, electronics, thats hooked up to a network. The only problem is TIME... Depending on how secure it is, if its weak in security it could be hacked in no time, while if its high in security then it could take some time, the trick to extreme high security is to prolong the time as long as possible. Such as make it to where if someone would want to hack or crack a code, it would take millions or even billions of years of computer calculation to crack it, thus the hacker would be dead long before the computer even breaks the security code, which in a sense makes high in security, of course unless someone would want to use a super duper super computer which can do billions, trillions, zillions of calculation per second, then the time to hack it would be greatly reduce. As computers get faster and stronger, its only a matter of time before all the networks in the world would be hackable in minutes.

[Cha]

Full details of the record setting assault are still not available, and may never be available. If McAfee is to be believed, though, the financial impact is likely enormous. The attack likely puts the affected governments, including the U.S. in panic mode. The pressing question -- how to improve their security so these attacks don't happen, and how to bring to justice an attacker who wields tremendous international financial power, should a breach occur.

http://www.dailytech.com/War+20+China+Susp...rticle22340.htm

Ever since the internet started to get widespread, I have always worried about governments and militaries allowing their vital information to be connected online. Even if it's a secluded online thing, it's too easy to obtain huge amounts of info if someone manages to sneak in or if someone who works there is a spy or accepts bribes.

do you guys remember that US just renew their law awhile ago, that they can declare war against any country that they suspect has attacked their network

so if their economy keeps going down, this is their last resort, war against china, and this could be use as reason to legitimate their attack just like iraq...

I doubt the US wants war against China. China is the least country that they want to target because China is one of the most powerful country out there. War against China would have a reverse effect in trying to improve the economy.

[kieshin]

Ever since the internet started to get widespread, I have always worried about governments and militaries allowing their vital information to be connected online. Even if it's a secluded online thing, it's too easy to obtain huge amounts of info if someone manages to sneak in or if someone who works there is a spy or accepts bribes.


I doubt the US wants war against China. China is the least country that they want to target because China is one of the most powerful country out there. War against China would have a reverse effect in trying to improve the economy.

not really, US and china is competing for resource and only to get worse, the only way for the west to keep growing is china stay the same or suppressed (economically and population wise) there are a lot of scenarios they could produce, divide china (regional unrest), sanctions or anything they could do to keep china backward, they try to contain japan also, if china and japan group together it will be a huge threat to US and western world

china needs to protect its own network, I bet you there are thousands of zombies machine in china right now, american can control these zombie machines to spread virus or launch an attack remotely. they could also do it from within china, some foreigners from internet cafe to internet cafes, installing virus with cd or disk

[Hugham]

.......................................

Government victims included United States, Taiwan, India, South Korea, Vietnam, and Canada.

.......................................

When I read Vietnam.........

Vietnam???

Vietnam have tons of worthy technology secret???

East Asian is full of surprise. I'm proud with Vietnamese.


Ehm, I know China is awesome, especially in the IT. Probably the world no.1.

I know we are smart. We hack computer is just for sport.

When Western children playing basketball, baseball, or anything. We are in front of our computer hacking the world toughest security system.

For us, it's a sport. Sport for our brain.

Do you think we aren't succeed? Just read again the article above and you know how smart we are.


I'm just quite surprise with US.

They connect their server which kept their most importance data to the internet.

For what? For the sake of sport, of course!

Thanks Uncle Sam, you are a good person.


US spend a lot of money in CIA, their intel agency, they even sub-contracting it to private sector, to hack third world country computers like China and Muslims countries.

While we spending a very little of money, probably just 10% of US budget, to hack the first world country greatest organizations in the whole world.


It seems, next year, our tech universities will be full of foreign student applicants.

This post has been edited by Hugham: Aug 4 2011, 09:04 AM

[Mid-Night_Sun]

huh...i dont think this was China. China didnt create their blue army until recently, while this was the culmination of attacks going back years. well then again, maybe i am naive in believing the Chinese blue army was formed when they said it did.

when it comes to computer networks, id never believe so easily the obvious evidence. everything points to China? that seems quite convenient. it should be easy to prove, when China does something that would require knowledge it shouldnt have that is linked to what was compromised in these attacks.



if it wasnt China, id guess the origin who really did it will be in the list of victim countries as well. its probably going to be the one who had the least sensitive info compromised.

This post has been edited by Mid-Night_Sun: Aug 4 2011, 08:45 AM

[Hugham]

huh...i dont think this was China. China didnt create their blue army until recently, while this was the culmination of attacks going back years. well then again, maybe i am naive in believing the Chinese blue army was formed when they said it did.

when it comes to computer networks, id never believe so easily the obvious evidence. everything points to China? that seems quite convenient. it should be easy to prove, when China does something that would require knowledge it shouldnt have that is linked to what was compromised in these attacks.



if it wasnt China, id guess the origin who really did it will be in the list of victim countries as well. its probably going to be the one who had the least sensitive info compromised.

What? So you underestimate your own people?

I know, you are posting this article:

Code blue for China's red army
The mainland's military is taking Mao Zedong's guerilla tactics into cyberspace with the creation of teams of online special forces to counter more powerful enemies

To counter more powerful enemies?

Are there more powerful countries than China in the IT sector?

[Mid-Night_Sun]

What? So you underestimate your own people?

I know, you are posting this article:



To counter more powerful enemies?

Are there more powerful countries than China in the IT sector?

MacAfee's Dmitri Alperovitch discusses the recent cyberspying that targeted groups and agencies around the world.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world...?iref=allsearch


go to the end, the ONLY evidence so far that implicates China, is the targets. its more like "oh who would want to do this to Taiwan? well obviously China". there is no actual evidence that links it to China.

i also know that Chinese hackers (civilian) are not supported by the government, but the Chinese Blue army is. they say the sheer size of the attack and the targets mean it cant be just civilian, but Chinese Blue army was not created yet (or so we are told). this operation started years ago.

[Hugham]

^
At the other forums and comment section below the article, the Westerners seem agree with me.

They are terrifying!

[KraterosHellas]

the west always loves to pretend to be the victim.

[InitialDJay]

not really, US and china is competing for resource and only to get worse, the only way for the west to keep growing is china stay the same or suppressed (economically and population wise) there are a lot of scenarios they could produce, divide china (regional unrest), sanctions or anything they could do to keep china backward, they try to contain japan also, if china and japan group together it will be a huge threat to US and western world

china needs to protect its own network, I bet you there are thousands of zombies machine in china right now, american can control these zombie machines to spread virus or launch an attack remotely. they could also do it from within china, some foreigners from internet cafe to internet cafes, installing virus with cd or disk

i don't feel going to war with the US is a good option. US has too much geographical advantage. and you wouldn't be able to cribble the US's morale unless you attack the mainland which is mission impossible.

a proxy war between US/china seems inevitable, a head on collision is unlikely for foreseeable future.