Electronic espionage

[waltky]

Chinese hacker spies hack military computers...

Pentagon: China trying to hack U.S. computers
Mon March 3, 2008 - Pentagon: Chinese military expanding its Navy, investing in weapons; Officials worry China is trying to hack into U.S. military computers; "Intrusions" have already happened, officials say, though info was not classified; Pentagon: China's lack of transparency makes it hard to know the extent of activity

The Chinese military continues to increase spending on efforts to break into U.S. military computer systems, expand its Navy, and invest in intercontinental nuclear missiles and weapons to destroy satellites, according to the latest U.S report on China's military power. The annual report from the Pentagon to Congress says China's total military spending in 2007 was between $97 billion and $139 billion, but it is hard to tell exactly how much was spent and on what.

In comparison, the U.S. military budget request for 2008 is $481.4 billion, not including war requests. Pentagon officials said a chunk of China's spending went to cyberwarfare, because 2007 saw several "intrusions" believed to be from the Peoples Liberation Army. In the incidents, unclassified U.S. military computer systems were broken into and information was taken, according to Pentagon officials.

While the information taken was not classified, Pentagon officials said the worry is the Chinese hacking required many of the skills and capabilities that would also be required for a computer network attack. Last summer, a cyber-attack on Department of Defense computer systems took down the e-mail capability of hundreds of staffers for weeks, but the Pentagon still will not comment on who initiated the attack. It is widely believed among the military to have been the Peoples Liberation Army. China is also investing heavily in and fielding improved nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles and antisatellite missiles, according to the report.

More Report: China trying to crack U.S. computers, buy nukes - CNN.com

[waltky]

India gettin' hit...

China mounts cyber attacks on Indian sites
5 May 2008, China’s cyber warfare army is marching on, and India is suffering silently.

Over the past one and a half years, officials said, China has mounted almost daily attacks on Indian computer networks, both government and private, showing its intent and capability. The sustained assault almost coincides with the history of the present political disquiet between the two countries. According to senior government officials, these attacks are not isolated incidents of something so generic or basic as "hacking" — they are far more sophisticated and complete — and there is a method behind the madness.

Publicly, senior government officials, when questioned, take refuge under the argument that "hacking" is a routine activity and happens from many areas around the world. But privately, they acknowledge that the cyber warfare threat from China is more real than from other countries. The core of the assault is that the Chinese are constantly scanning and mapping India’s official networks. This gives them a very good idea of not only the content but also of how to disable the networks or distract them during a conflict. This, officials say, is China’s way of gaining "an asymmetrical advantage" over a potential adversary.

The big attacks that were sourced to China over the last few months included an attack on NIC (National Infomatics Centre), which was aimed at the National Security Council, and on the MEA. Other government networks, said sources, are routinely targeted though they haven’t been disabled. A quiet effort is under way to set up defence mechanisms, but cyber warfare is yet to become a big component of India’s security doctrine. Dedicated teams of officials — all underpaid, of course — are involved in a daily deflection of attacks. But the real gap is that a retaliatory offensive system is yet to be created.

More China mounts cyber attacks on Indian sites-India-The Times of India

[waltky]

Two lawmakers say Chinese hacked computers...

Lawmakers say Chinese hacked computers
Wed., June. 11, 2008 WASHINGTON - Legislators are both longtime critics of China's record on human rights

Two House members said Wednesday their Capitol Hill computers, containing information about political dissidents from around the world, have been hacked by sources apparently working out of China. Virginia Rep. Frank Wolf says four of his computers were hacked. New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith says two of his computers were compromised in December 2006 and March 2007. The two lawmakers are longtime critics of China's record on human rights.

In an interview Wednesday, Wolf said the hacking of computers in his Capitol Hill office began in August 2006. He says a computer at a House committee office also was hacked, and he suggested others in the House and possibly the Senate could be involved. The FBI declined to comment. Wolf said that in his office, the hackers "got everything," including all the casework regarding political dissidents around the world.

In comments to The Associated Press earlier in the day, Wolf suggested the problem probably goes further. "If it's been done in the House, don't you think that they're doing the same thing in the Senate?" "I think this is very bad because you have the Chinese compromising and gaining access to computers of any number of members of the House and a major committee of the House," Wolf said. "We don't know how many others."

In calling for hearings in both the House and Senate, Wolf said there "probably are members serving in Congress whose computers have been compromised and they may not even know it." Separately, U.S. authorities are investigating whether Chinese officials secretly copied the contents of a government laptop computer during a visit to China by Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and used the information to try to hack into Commerce Department computers.

More Lawmakers say Chinese hacked computers - Security - MSNBC.com

[waltky]

Terrorists hackin' Iraq computers...

Hackers attack Iraq's vulnerable computers
29 Aug.`08 — Maj. Ahmed Khathem, the head of Iraq's newly formed cybercrimes division, sits in a borrowed office, at a borrowed desk, working on a laptop borrowed from one of his subordinates.

It is his unit's lone computer, highlighting the country's vulnerability to a community of Iraqi hackers defacing websites and attempting to hack into sensitive internal networks. Iraq's government is engaged in a bloody struggle against al-Qaeda, and its computers make a prime target for global terror networks that have added hacking to their arsenal. "We could have the most powerful anti-hacking force in the world, but we'd still have no computers, so we couldn't do anything," says Ali Hussein, one of 12 computer science graduates added to the cybercrime team last month. "The government thinks about guns, tanks and raiding houses. Hackers just aren't a priority."

Computer usage in Iraq has mushroomed since the U.S. invasion in 2003. During the Saddam Hussein era, Internet access was largely forbidden in the country, and economic sanctions made computers difficult to obtain. The Interior Ministry, which had no computers connected to the Internet in 2003, has 5,000 today. "Now, the government is starting to use computers everywhere, but these computers aren't protected," Khathem says. In May, an innocuous pop-up window flashed onto the screen of an employee at the Ministry of Interior, Khathem says. The window asked if he wanted to install updates to his computer.

Had he clicked "OK," he would have given a hacker who calls himself the "Iraqi Hacker" access to reams of sensitive data, including e-mails and addresses of the ministry's thousands of security officers. "If that information had fallen into the hands of terrorists, it would have been a catastrophe," says Lt. Alaa Hussein, another member of the ministry's anti-hacking team. Fortunately, the employee was savvy enough to alert the cybercrimes division.

MORE