Chinese cyberspies have hacked most Washington institutions, experts say

[spursncowboys]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/chinese-cyberspies-have-hacked-most-washington-institutions-experts-say/2013/02/20/ae4d5120-7615-11e2-95e4-6148e45d7adb_story.html?hpid=z1


The information compromised by such intrusions, security experts say, would be enough to map how power is exercised in Washington to a remarkably nuanced degree. The only question, they say, is whether the Chinese have the analytical resources to sort through the massive troves of data they steal every day.


Cyberspying against what could be called the “information industry” differs from hacks against traditional economic targets such as Lockheed Martin, Coca-Cola andApple (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/apple-confirms-attack-by-same-hackers-who-hit-facebook/2013/02/19/fc9ba61a-7ac5-11e2-82e8-61a46c2cde3d_story.html), whose computer systems contain valuable intellectual property that could assist Chinese industrial or military capabilities.
Instead, journalists, lawyers and human rights workers often have access to political actors whose communications could offer insight to Chinese intelligence services eager to understand how Washington works. Hackers often are searching for the unseen forces that might explain how the administration approaches an issue, experts say, with many Chinese officials presuming that reports by think tanks or news organizations are secretly the work of government officials — much as they would be in Beijing.

[spursncowboys]

Washington's response:

WASHINGTON (AP) — As public evidence mounts that the Chinese military is responsible for stealing massive amounts of U.S.government data and corporate trade secrets, the Obama administration is poised to spell out specific trade actions it may take against Beijing or any other country guilty of cyberespionage.According to officials familiar with the plans, the White House is eyeing fines, penalties and other trade restrictions as initial, more-aggressive steps the U.S. would take in response to what top officials say has been an unrelenting campaign of cyberstealing linked to the Chinese government. The new strategy is to be released Wednesday, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the threatened action.
The White House plans come after a Virginia-based cybersecurity firm released a torrent of details Monday that tied a secret Chinese military unit in Shanghai to years of cyberattacks against U.S. companies. After analyzing breaches that compromised more than 140 companies, Mandiant has concluded that they can be linked People's Liberation Army's Unit 61398.
http://news.yahoo.com/us-ready-strike-back-china-cyberattacks-224303045--finance.html

[boutons_deux]

As if the US hasn't been spying on everybody for decades.

[z0sa]

As if the US hasn't been spying on everybody for decades.

Irrelevant.

[Wild Cobra]

What ever happened to closed data systems the government used to use?

[Capt Bringdown]

Be afraid, very afraid!

[spursncowboys]

What ever happened to closed data systems the government used to use?
No classified seems to be good. It's the unclass and all the companies, journalists, think tanks, etc.
Actually I don't know if our classified networks are ok. It hasn't been declassified.

[Wild Cobra]

No classified seems to be good. It's the unclass and all the companies, journalists, think tanks, etc.
Actually I don't know if our classified networks are ok. It hasn't been declassified.
It used to be that even if someone could tap into military communications, the data was encrypted. There was no possibility of "switching' and hacking in, because there was no internet.

No classified system should have an internet port. Period. They should be isolated from any possible hacking.

[boutons_deux]

Some Victims of Online Hacking Edge Into the Light

SAN FRANCISCO - Hackers have hit thousands of American corporations in the last few years, but few companies ever publicly admit it. Most treat online attacks as a dirty secret best kept from customers, shareholders and competitors, lest the disclosure sink their stock price and tarnish them as hapless.

Rarely have companies broken that silence, usually when the attack is reported by someone else. But in the last few weeks more companies have stepped forward. Twitter, Facebook and Apple have all announced that they were attacked by sophisticated cybercriminals. The New York Times revealed its experience with hackers in a front-page article last month.

The admissions reflect the new way some companies are calculating the risks and benefits of going public. While companies once feared shareholder lawsuits and the ire of the Chinese government, some can't help noticing that those that make the disclosures are lauded, as Google was, for their bravery. Some fear the embarrassment of being unable to fend off hackers who may still be in high school.

But as hacking revelations become more common, the threat of looking foolish fades and more companies are seizing the opportunity to take the leap in a crowd.

"There is a 'hide in the noise' effect right now," said Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, a nonprofit security research and education organization. "This is a particularly good time to get out the fact that you got hacked, because if you are one of many, it discounts the starkness of the announcement."

In 2010, when Google alerted some users of Gmail - political activists, mostly - that it appeared Chinese hackers were trying to read their mail, such disclosures were a rarity. In its announcement, Google said that it was one of many - two dozen - companies that had been targeted by the same group. Google said it was making the announcement, in part, to encourage other companies to open up about the problem.

But of that group, only Intel and Adobe Systems reluctantly stepped forward, and neither provided much detail.

Twitter admitted that it had been hacked this month. Facebook and Apple followed suit two weeks later. Within hours after The Times published its account, The Wall Street Journal chimed in with a report that it, too, had been attacked by what it believed to be Chinese hackers. The Washington Post followed.

Not everyone took advantage of the cover. Bloomberg, for example, has repeatedly denied that its systems were also breached by Chinese hackers, despite several sources that confirmed that its computers were infected with malware.

Computer security experts estimate that more than a thousand companies have been attacked recently. In 2011, security researchers at McAfee unearthed a vast online espionage campaign, called Operation Shady Rat, that found more than 70 organizations had been hit over a five-year period, many in the United States.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/technology/hacking-victims-edge-into-light.xml?f=24

[LnGrrrR]

It used to be that even if someone could tap into military communications, the data was encrypted. There was no possibility of "switching' and hacking in, because there was no internet.

No classified system should have an internet port. Period. They should be isolated from any possible hacking.

Most classified systems aren't connected up to the internet. That doesn't mean they are isolated from hacking.

[Vladimir Lenin]

As if the US hasn't been spying on everybody for decades.


Yes they have/so have I