Chinese Cyberattacks Cause Damage, Embarrassment

[OhioChick]

Alleged Chinese cyberattacks on U.S. and German government computers are part of an espionage strategy aimed not just at gaining intelligence but causing disruption and embarrassment, Western officials and experts say.

By Reuters

LONDON, Sept 5 - Alleged Chinese cyberattacks on U.S. and German government computers are part of an espionage strategy aimed not just at gaining intelligence but causing disruption and embarrassment, Western officials and experts say.

In the past 10 days, Beijing has hotly denied reports in Western media that Chinese hackers penetrated systems in the Pentagon and in the chancellery and key ministries of German leader Angela Merkel.

On Wednesday, Britain's Foreign Office declined to comment on a report in the Guardian newspaper that its network had also been hit, but a security source confirmed there had been frequent Chinese attempts to penetrate British government systems. "They're interested in scientific and technological information, both civil and military-related. They're interested in acquisition of political and economic intelligence. And they're interested in monitoring of dissident individuals and groups," the official told Reuters.

"Part of that is acquisition of information through cyber-attack."

While declining further specific comment on China, he said cyber-attacks in general had several possible aims besides gaining secret information. They can severely disrupt the target's networks and damage its reputation, especially in the case of a high-profile institution like the Pentagon.

"Hacking into the home of Fortress America is quite a reputational hit," the official said.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201804350

[Lobster Martini]

1. China is also hacking into British government computers...

China ‘tops list’ of cyber-hackers seeking UK government secrets

China leads the list of countries hacking into government computers that contain Britain’s military and foreign policy secrets, Whitehall sources said yesterday.

The emergence of Beijing as one of the most hostile state hackers has been highlighted in the United States this week, with allegations that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army tried to extract secrets from a computer in the Pentagon office of Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary.

President Bush suggested that he intended to confront China directly over the claims that it has been trying to hack into Pentagon and other US government computers. Mr Bush hinted that he was prepared to risk a diplomatic rift by raising the sensitive issue with President Hu Jintao when the pair meet in Sydney today at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit.

One Whitehall source said that China was switching increasingly from “old-fashioned espionage” techniques to electronic hacking. The source said: “China is engaged in hostile intelligence activities, and instead of using the old-fashioned methods , they are focusing on electronic means to hack into systems to discover Britain’s defence and foreign policy secrets, and they are technologically pretty advanced and adept at it.”

<snip>

(link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2393979.ece)

[soothsayer]

2. and we can't do it to them because we're too stupid to read chinese!

prolly fired all the gay chinese translators

[Demeter]

3. The Logical Solution Is: Dual Networks!

You have your internal network for working information, your external network for public information, and never the twain shall meet.

This is basic, folks. And simple. And cheap.