China Says it's a Cyberattack Victim, Not Attacker
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Countries that are hackers' targets should work together, not blame each other, officials say.
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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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China on Tuesday rejected a report that hackers controlled by its military had successfully entered a Pentagon network, calling the claim a product of dangerous "Cold War" thinking.
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A Georgia Tech professor detained by Chinese authorities who accused him of spying said Monday that China's actions were "punishment for his noncooperation."
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Feds say China's still playing the spy game.
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(InfoWorld) - The Chinese government has denied involvement in a series of hacks carried out against IT systems at the Pentagon in June this week, but the threat of technology-driven espionage has forced the FBI to push businesses and academic institutions to better prepare for such attacks. Little publicly-available evidence exists to prove that foreign governments have backed or planned to launch attempts to steal intellectual property from U.S. corporations and researchers, but officials with the FBI claim that the problem is real and that American organizations must begin policing their operations more aggressively today to prevent valuable data from being stolen tomorrow. In October, the FBI's Counterintelligence Domain Program -- which aims to foster cooperation between the agency and private entities to help organizations identify and protect potential intelligence risks -- will mark its first year in existence. The program is already making significant steps in helping to close the gap between businesses and law enforcement to defend intellectual property from being left vulnerable to potential theft, FBI officials maintain. "In the past, we've always been reactive to this type of scenario and essentially showed up after the fact to bring resources to bear on this type of crime, but we want to be more proactive to help businesses and academic institutions protect themselves before an incident occurs," said Tom Mahlik, who serves as chief of the Domain program for the FBI. "We've always responded aggressively to traditional espionage with investigation, such as with the theft of national secrets, but those cases really represent counterintelligence failures where the secrets are already in Beijing or Moscow and where valuable new technologies or intellectual property would already be gone," he said. Counterintelligence efforts rank second on FBI Director Robert S. Mueller's current strategic agenda, sandwiched below counterterrorism work and above the fight against all forms of cyber-crime, according to Mahlik. Thus far, the Domain project has materialized primarily in the form of relationships built between the leaders of the agency's 56 individual divisions and the leading corporate entities and research groups identified by those units as organizations that control data that criminals and governments could try to get their hands on. For instance, companies handling sensitive government work -- such as defense contractors and large IT systems integrators -- have already joined in the effort, Mahlik said. The program will be expanded over time to pull more companies into the fold that are developing cutting-edge technologies and other products that are considered to give the U.S. a technological or business-related advantage. Those relationships, and training seminars held by the FBI in the name of expanding Domain, are aimed at identifying any research, information, or technologies that might be targeted by U.S. adversaries -- and to establish an ongoing information exchange among the program's members to improve protections and reduce opportunities for theft. As for the current state of involvement of foreign nation states, including large terrorist groups, in intellectual property theft, the FBI refuses to share specific examples or hard data, but Mahlik said there should be little doubt that the problem exists. "The FBI is well aware of deliberate targeted attacks that were aimed at stealing sensitive data from organizations, including NASA, the Department of Defense, and individual defense contractors," said the FBI expert. "We're still trying to deduce the magnitude of the problem, and a lot of that has to do with what we've dealt with in terms of investigating any ex-filtration of data and where it has ended up." Mahlik said that two of the most significant trends feeding the need for corporate counterintelligence are offshore outsourcing and the heavy flow of foreign engineering talent into U.S. corporations and research institutions. While it remains hard to prove that foreigners are being trained specifically with the purpose of infiltrating U.S organizations to steal valuable data, he said that the concept is very real. "This isn't about traditional spies anymore; the engineer, student, or business partner are the threat now, and these people are being given increased access to corporate secrets, intellectual property, and pre-patent research information at universities," Mahlik said. "These types of people are being actively used to ex-filtrate key pieces of information back to their homelands as there is always a race to establish a competitive advantage." Data security in a global market David Drab, principal for the Information & Content Security group at Xerox, said that companies are increasingly coming to the imaging giant looking for new ways to label sensitive information and track its flow among users in the workplace and throughout their supply chains. Before joining Xerox, Drab served at the FBI for 27 years and observed, among other things, the flow of former KGB agents in former Soviet states into criminal organizations. A good number of those intelligence experts were trained in the art of finding holders of sensitive corporate and national defense information and trying to liberate the data, he said, and many are likely employed in efforts to steal whatever plans they can sell to others for a profit today. "This is why you have Wal-Mart hiring former government intelligence officers. It's not about spying so much as it's about identifying business risk and what is occurring with competitors in the global environment," Drab said. "These companies are creating separate entities from traditional security or IT security to allow management to identify people internally who might have access to high-level information or might be targeted by competitors or foreign entities." Drab points to the 2001 indictment of two Japanese-born individuals accused of stealing research on Alzheimer's disease from the Lerner Research Institute (LRI) in Cleveland as proof of the need for enterprise counterintelligence. One of the accused researchers subsequently pled guilty to charges of misleading investigators looking into the situation, while another, who returned to Japan to work for a quasi-government agency working on Alzheimer's research, was unsuccessfully sought for extradition to the U.S. to face trial. Among the tools developed by Xerox to help trace the use of paper documents, one of the hardest data formats to track, are gloss marks and infrared stamps used to create a trail of evidence as to who might have accessed, printed and walked off with sensitive data when copies of any stolen documents are recovered. Large companies like financial services institutions have also begun speaking publicly about the problem of international cyber-theft, saying that they are already working to deal with the problem. At the Usenix Security Symposium held in Boston in August, Jerry Brady, global head of IT security at New York-based financial giant Morgan Stanley, outlined the threat of foreign attack as a current business reality. He specifically cited emerging activity in the Far East as worrisome. "Sometimes the threats are coming from the governments themselves in different parts of the world," said Brady. "The people who want to harm us drives a lot about how we think of security awareness. We do a lot of monitoring and threat intelligence to tell who our adversaries are today and who they will be tomorrow." When asked if the government has done enough to help companies like Morgan Stanley deal with the issue, Brady said that the firm's relationship with law enforcement officials has improved over the last several years, specifically around intelligence gathering regarding new threats. However, he said that companies cannot rely on the government alone to watch out for their interests overseas. "It's popular to pin this issue on the government, but we in private industry need to play an even bigger role in addressing the problem," said Brady. "Every time we go into a new country we have to do a risk assessment, every country has its own IP protections and concepts and we know that; we know the countries where ex-KGB Soviet Bloc resources have ended up, and where we need to be even more vigilant."
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China dismisses reports that its military hacked into the Pentagon's computer network.
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China defended its growing military prowess on Monday, saying it did not threaten the United States, and again urged Washington not to sell weapons to Taiwan.
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Symantec is to stop classifying a software utility that enables Chinese surfers to view blocked websites as a Trojan horse. The reassessment follows stories earlier this week questioning the designation of
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A 20-year-old Estonian student has been fined for participating in&#160;a cyberattack that paralyzed Estonian Web sites&#160;and&#160;soured the country&#39;s relationship with Russia, a government official said Thursday.Dmitri Galushkevich used his home PC to launched a denial-of-service attack that knocked down the Web site for the political party of Estonia&#39;s prime minister for several days, said Gerrit Maesalu, spokesman for the Northeast District Prosecutor&#39;s Office in Tallinn, Estonia&#39;s capital. Galushkevich must pay 17,500 kroons ($1,642).Galushkevich is the only person who has been convicted since the cyberattack in April and May 2007 crippled the Web sites of banks, schools, and government agencies.The attacks occurred after the Estonian government decided to relocate a Soviet-era World War II memorial of a bronze soldier. Ethnic Russians in Estonia rioted in the streets, and cyberattacks ensued. Russia denied involvement.&quot;He [Galushkevich] wanted to show that he was against the removal of this bronze statue,&quot; Maesalu. &quot;At the moment, we don&#39;t have any other suspects.&quot;But police are still trying to find others who may have been involved in the attacks, although the investigation is complicated since the attackers are likely outside Estonia, Maesalu said.As the attacks were continuing, Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo called for stronger defenses in Europe against computer hackers.&#160;
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(InfoWorld) - Symantec's attempt to make amends with Chinese users who saw theirÂ computers crippled by its antivirus softwareÂ is off to a rocky start, with critics saying the company'sÂ compensation offerÂ isn't good enough. "Symantec's response to its Chinese consumers lacks seriousness and sincerity," said Alamus, the deputy director of the China Electronic Commerce Association's committee on legal and policy issues, speaking in a news report on CCTV 9, the international channel of state broadcaster China Central Television. Alamus uses a single name. The company also came under criticism in a separate report carried by CCTV's dedicated news channel on Monday. "We think this kind of compensation, of course, is better than nothing. But it's not a comprehensive and complete compensation offer," Lu Benfu, director of the Chinese Academy of Science's Internet Development Research Center, said in that report. The problems caused by Symantec's update and its compensation offer have also generated heavy coverage online. Sina.com, one of China's most popular news sites, has set up a dedicated page, complete with links to news reports, blog postings, discussion threads, and user polls. Symantec's problems began May 18 when it issued a faulty Norton antivirus update for the Simplified Chinese version of Windows XP. The update mistook two system files for malware and quarantined them, crippling thousands of PCs. Symantec estimated that 50,000 PCs were affected, while Chinese press reports put the figure higher. The incident provoked an outcry among Chinese users, with many demanding compensation for lost data and the cost of restoring their systems. At least two lawsuits have been filed against Symantec over the incident. At first the company issued a formal apology and a fix for the problem, but offered no compensation. As calls for compensation persisted, the company said details of a compensation offer were under consideration. On Monday, five weeks after the faulty update was released, Symantec announced that affected users will be eligible to receive free software. Symantec is offering affected Chinese consumers a one-year extension to their license for its Norton antivirus software and a copy of Norton Save & Restore 2.0. Corporate customers are being offered Symantec Ghost Solution Suite licenses, depending on the number of PCs affected. The company is not offering to extend antivirus licenses for corporate customers affected by the faulty update. This deal, which Symantec described as a "goodwill offer" rather than compensation, will be offered to users for a brief window of time, from June 27 to July 15. That choice of wording may ultimately come back to haunt the company. "It's obvious that Symantec is trying to avoid mentioning compensation. They are watching the reaction from users," Alamus told CCTV. "They are attempting to get away from their responsibility." Chinese consumers have become increasingly vocal in recent years, often taking complaints about products and services online with postings on Internet bulletin boards and blogs. The commentators often have an impact offline, as well. "They are the experts that you go to when you want to select antivirus software, for example, so their influence certainly extends offline," said Sam Flemming, the CEO and founder of CIC, a firm that tracks Chinese bulletin boards and blogs for multinational companies. The complaints rarely spill over into mainstream news coverage, such as CCTV news broadcasts. But when they do, foreign companies make easier targets than Chinese companies, for several reasons. Foreign companies generally lack the political backing and connections to shield them from criticism, and they are vulnerable to nationalist sentiments that can inflame consumer attitudes towards them. "Foreign companies who run into these problems will get hit harder than Chinese companies," said Jeremy Goldkorn, editor of Danwei.org, a Web site that tracks China's media. Â
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Despite earlier reports to the contrary, Chinese visitors to Google and other search engines are not being re-directed to Baidu, according to users in Beijing and Shanghai.
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Cybercriminals do not stockpile exploits, then time their release to do the most damage, security researcher says.
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Though Storm worm's prevalence is under debate, its ability to launch DDoS attacks against investigators is not.
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Analysts said a full-fledged recovery for the Chinese computer maker isn't yet in sight.
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(Corrects paragraphs 7-8 to show comments were made by Chinaâs ambassador, not Russiaâs; inserts paragraph 6)
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While the victims of the latest phishing technique may not have to click on a link to be victimized by the effort to steal information, the attack is similar to traditional phishing scams because