Germany says Chinese state is behind cyber spying
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The Chinese state is behind almost daily  Internet espionage attacks on German companies and government  bodies, a top German intelligence official said on Monday.
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China has suffered "massive" losses of state secrets through the Internet, a senior official said, as China faces reports that it has raided the computer networks of Western powers.
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(InfoWorld) - For months, German Interior Minister Wolfgang SchÃ¤uble has been lobbying intensively forÂ tough security measures to fight terrorismÂ and cybercrime. Now he's putting his words into action. Law enforcement officials in Germany and Austria are now among the first to have electronic access to each other's fingerprint databases, the German Federal Ministry of the Interior said Monday. Since 2006, the two countries have shared their DNA databases as one of several measures agreed by some European Union nations under the Treaty of PrÃ¼m in 2005. The treaty, which has meanwhile been signed by several E.U. member states, gives police and other security agencies in different countries unprecedentedÂ access to a range of individuals' personal data. During its E.U. presidency, Germany is trying to muster enough support to turn the Treaty of PrÃ¼m into E.U. law. Support for tough security measures has grown in Germany and other E.U. member states that worry about their national security being increasingly threatened by international terrorism, organized crime and, increasingly, cybercrime. Recently, the Baltic nation ofÂ Estonia suffered several weeks of DDOSÂ (distributed denial-of-service) attacks against government and private-sector Web sites. That DDOS attack sent a warning signal to governments across Europe. On Monday at an IT security conference hosted by the German Interior Ministry, SchÃ¤uble referred to information technology and communications infrastructures as "the nerve strands of society" and called on everyone -- governments, businesses and consumers -- to give IT security a top priority. Protecting critical infrastructure, including communication and energy grids, from cyberattacks is a key area of focus during the two-day conference. SchÃ¤uble is also determined to give the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) greater power to monitor terrorists and criminals online by allowing the agency to peek inside their computers. In an interview with the Berliner Zeitung published on Saturday, the minister said he aims to complete draft legislation over the next few weeks to allow the BKA to hack into the PCs of suspected criminals. This year Germany's High Court handed down a landmark decisionÂ banning police from installing spywareÂ on computers of suspected criminals without their knowledge. The High Court in Karlsruhe argued that searching computers is similar to searching homes, a practice in Germany that requires police to follow certain procedures, such as obtaining a search warrant and informing suspected offenders of a search. The judges also argued that hacking computers by the police is not permitted under Germany's strict phone-tapping laws and that legislation would be needed to enable covert surveillance. In the interview, SchÃ¤uble said he would amend Germany's constitutional law to allow online surveillance if the country's leading courts required such an amendment. In February, Germany passed a law allowing security officials to create the largest and most comprehensive pool of personal data ever amassed in the country. The databases of nearly 40 different agencies, including BKA and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), are now linked to allow authorities to run searches on suspected individuals and retrieve information within minutes. Â
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Just a week after it was revealed that the Chinese may have been behind a cyberattack on the Pentagon in June of this year, the Chinese are now claiming "massive damage" from spying on its own computers.
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The governmentâs ability to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists overseas led to the arrests of three militants accused of planning attacks in Germany.
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(InfoWorld) - China Tuesday denied allegations that its militaryÂ hacked a Pentagon networkÂ in JuneÂ -- the second time in as many weeks that the country has responded to charges of sponsoring computer attacks. "Some people are making wild accusations against China and wantonly saying the Chinese military attacked the Pentagon's computer network," Jiang Yu, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said in Beijing, according to the state-controlled Xinhua news service. "These are totally groundless and also reflect a Cold War mentality," she added. Jiang was responding to a story published by the Financial Times this weekend that quoted American officials who said the People's Liberation Army (PLA) was behind the June hack. One person familiar with the incident told the Financial Times that there was a "very high level of confidence... trending towards total certainty" that the PLA was responsible. Other sources told the publication that Chinese hackers probed the Pentagon system for months before the attacks, which forced the U.S. to take the network offline for more than a week. The Department of Defense downplayed the attack, but declined to point the finger at any one country or group. The attack on an unclassified e-mail network in the Office of the Secretary of Defense required that the systems be taken offline, spokesman Bryan Whitman acknowledged today, but backup networks kicked in. He would not confirm that China hackers were behind the assault, saying only that it's often difficult to pinpoint the origin of an intrusion into computer systems. But the Pentagon did not stand idly by, he said. "Cyber or non-kinetic type threats to military computer networks are viewed as just as real and just as significant as physical or kinetic threats," Whitman said in a statement. "The department aggressively responds to deter all intrusions to defend what is known as the GIG, the global information grid." Just a month before the attack, the Department of Defense had issued a report claiming that the PLA fieldsÂ first-strike cyberwarfareÂ units whose arsenals include computer viruses they might unleash on enemy networks. When the Pentagon released its annual report on the state of China's military strength in late May, Jiang, the same foreign ministry spokeswoman who blasted the story today, took exception to its overall tone, although she didn't mention cyberwarfare specifically. The U.S., she said then, "continues to spread myth of the 'China Threat' by exaggerating China's military strength and expenses out of ulterior motives." Last week, Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, raised the same issue during her visit to Beijing after the popular weekly Der Spiegel said systems at several government ministries, including Merkel's own office, had beenÂ infected with spywareÂ planted by Chinese hackers. In statements made during a press conference Aug. 27, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao called the reports of "grave concern" and promised that China would cooperate with Germany in its investigation. Today, Jiang seemed to echo Wen's comments. "The Chinese government has always opposed any Internet-wrecking crime, including hacking, and cracked down on it according to the law," she said. The Chinese military has been involved with hacking and viruses since at least the early 1990s, according to a 2000 paper written by Timothy Thomas of the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth. Coincidentally, the president of both China and the U.S. will face off this week in Australia during meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. Hu Jintao, China's president, arrived in the country yesterday, while President George W. Bush arrived in Sydney today. Trade and climate change are expected to lead the agenda during the 21-country talks. Hu and Bush are scheduled to meet one-on-one during the conference. Â  Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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Germany will push the European Union's  member states to agree to share the surveillance of militant  Web sites when it takes over the bloc's presidency in January,  a senior German official said on Monday.
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The German software company says an American subsidiaryâs actions were âinappropriateâ but contests a claim of espionage.
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When it comes to who can and who can't be a hacker, the German government appears to want its cake and eat it, too.
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German police have long expressed interest in having surveillance tools that could crack Skype, but leaked documents seem to indicate that thanks to specially commissioned malware, they do indeed have ways of making your VoIP talk.
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Leaked classified documents could point to a Skype and SSL intercepting system that could be launched in southern Germany next month.
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Germany moved on Monday to control damage to its diplomatic ties with China a day after Chancellor Angela Merkel angered Beijing by holding an historic meeting with the Dalai Lama.
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Feds say China's still playing the spy game.
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German officials on Friday defended a proposal to use "Trojan horse" software to secretly monitor potential terror suspects' hard drives, amid fierce debate over whether the measures violate civil liberties.
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(InfoWorld) - The Chinese government took steps during 2006 toÂ increase its controlÂ and monitoring of Internet access by the country's growing Internet population, the U.S. Department of State said in a human-rights report released on Tuesday. "While the government continued to encourage expanded use of the Internet, it also took steps to monitor its use, control content, restrict information, and punished those who violated regulations," the annual report said. Among the steps implemented by the government are stricter requirements for Web-site registration, greater official control over content, and a wider definition of what constitutes illegal activity online, it said. The Country Reports on Human Rights Practices are published annually by the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. ChinaÂ has nearly 140 million Internet users, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), which tracks Internet usage in the country. The large number of Internet users has not eroded the government's ability to control access to content it deems undesirable, said the State Department, citing reports that the Chinese government employes "tens of thousands of persons" to monitor the Internet. "The authorities reportedly began to employ more sophisticated technology enabling the selective blocking of specific content rather than entire Web sites. Such technology was also used to block e-mails containing sensitive content," the report said. The Chinese government has alsoÂ enlisted the help of domestic and multinational companiesÂ to restrict access to information on the Internet. "Chinese search engines such as Baidu.com and the China-based search engines of Yahoo, MSN, and Google filtered search results, including those relating to the Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and human rights," it said.
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A planned rail freight service between Germany and China has been backed by six countries, Chinese media says.
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Backed by &quot;armies&quot; of cyber-police, China is spearheading an increasingly sophisticated movement by repressive regimes to restrict the Internet, a global media watchdog said in its annual report.