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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Professional Chinese Military Hackers |
| 2005-12-22 |
| December 22, 2005: Chinese Cyber War efforts are being betrayed by increased professionalism. What? In the past, Chinese hacking efforts were typically numerous, and often sloppy. Being able to trace some of the attackers back to Chinese neighborhoods ( known to contain military or government bureaucracies) made it pretty clear who the intruders probably were. The Chinese denied everything, although they admitted that there were Chinese students who might do that sort of thing, and, of course, there were criminal elements out there as well. But more recently, a lot of the attacks from China have been much better organized, possessing a, shall we say, âmilitary precision.â These guys arenât trainees, bored students or inept criminals. The latest batch of Chinese hackers are going after American military servers, and are trying to plant Trojan Horse type software, that will enable them to return, at will, to grab data from the infected PC, or quickly shut it down. A Trojan Horse can also be used to monitor what goes on in the infected PC, but that requires sending stuff back to China, which makes it more likely that the PC infection will be discovered. Many of the infections are being discovered, although itâs a secret how many, and how. The big question is, how many of the infections were not detected. The Chinese are also going after American defense contractors, and U.S. government systems in general. Many of these attacks appear to be to collect secret information. Cyber War begins in peace time, as you constantly scout enemy networks, trying to get a good idea of how vulnerable they are to infection. When the real war comes, whoever can do the most damage, the quickest, wins. While the rest of the Chinese army may not train a lot, the same cannot be said for the Cyber War troops. They are training hard, and doing it on the networks they would attack in wartime. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #5 (1) Old news ... c.f. the Red Lion attack around the time we were getting ready to go into Iraq. (2) The single largest cadet activity at West Point is the student chapter of ACM's SIGSAC (special interest group, security). One of their annual events is a several-day Cyber Defense Exercise against the other service academies, with NSA running the competition and judging. The first year, NSA left a minor door open on the unclassified server from which they ran the competition. The West Point cadets owned that machine in the first few hours. Heh. (3) West Point was the first under-graduate institution to be awarded NSA designation as a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education in 2001 and renewed in 2004. Bottom line: it's not news and a lot is going on to create a capability of our own. |
| Posted by: lotp 2005-12-22 20:52 |
| #4 Although I'm confident that we'll never hear about it, we all can be sure that our military is preparing some pretty nasty forms of reprisal. This sort of exploratory cyber-spying has to have a severe price tag attached to it. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-12-22 17:36 |
| #3 Wait till the |
| Posted by: Glailing Ulusing4418 2005-12-22 16:42 |
| #2 As if we don't know this hacking is taking place? The Norks even are reported to have an advanced cyberforce, although they are reported to be using tandy hardware from 1985. Seriously though, I bet we're spending considerable efforts defending our e-infrastructure. Another half ass "we're digging deep" strategy page scare story to generate subscribers? |
| Posted by: Juper Phavise2496 2005-12-22 10:25 |
| #1 I recommend the Pentagon begin employing Navajo Code Sheesh. * We're Doomed! Unless You Subscribe, Of Course. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-12-22 10:15 |