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Australia Vulnerable to Korean Hacking Army
Nan writes "An army of more than 500 hackers hired by the North Korean military could find Australian businesses a "softer target" than their U.S. or European-based counterparts, according to security experts. The hacking army's mission is to break into South Korean, Japanese and American corporate networks to gather intelligence and steal trade secrets, according to reports."
... Western countries unite in a global blocking campaign, virtually disconnecting North Korea from the internet, after a number of government-funded hacking threats from North Korea.
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
Comment removed based on user account deletion
From the article -
"This is probably more boasting than a real threat. In the past we have seen similar claims from the Taiwanese and the East Timorese," said Hyppönen.
Heh. Probably yet another of those notice us! notice us! type publicity stunt by N Korea.
And even if they do hack into an odd website or two, people will start to take notice and will act on it. It's far easier to secure your networks than launch an offensive on N Korea.
These guys just need to be ignored while they jump around their cages trying to garner attention.
The US established here in Europe a gigantic spy network, called Echelon. As we now know they also use this network for stealing trade secrets.
So, the situation here is not that different here unless no one seems to bother about this...
Last I checked you needed electricity to run a computer, and last satellite photo I saw, the North Koreans didn't have any of that.
I'm betting Aussie networks are safe from their North Korean TCP/Abacus layer attacks.
Note to Kim Jong-Il:
It's not how many hackers you have but how good they are. One really skilled hakcker can do a lot of damage if he manages to attack at the right point.
I don't need a signature.
Because we are not them.
And it would be a scary precedent. If it's N Korea today, why couldn't it be China tomorrow?
And you would be harming whatever little percentage of people who use the Internet in N Korea, in the process. Besides, the Internet would be a source of access to the people of that country.
We all know how well sanctions work, right? It wouldn't make a difference. They're just trying to rake up a noise to garner attention.
Better that they say they'd hack into networks rather than say they'd launch a nuclear offensive.
Why have such secrets and sensitive information Internet accessible? it's their own fault if their security methods are weak and information can be accessed by hackers.
Yeah well, they should stop giving hackers from N Korea moderation rights anyway... :)
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
Why do I continually get service probes and scans from Korea and Taiwan?
He must have come up with that idea while playing C&C:Generals. Since he's also rumored to be a great fan of pr0n he probably won't share his female superhackers with us. : /
Crikey! Do you blokes reckon that those little North Koreeun fellas would be able to hack into my beer recipes?
And the DPRK doesn't really want to piss us off - we are in a fairly unique position, as a close American ally that has diplomatic relations with the North Koreans. They may be tyrannical thugs, but they're not stupid either, and that diplomatic channel is surely worth more to them than hacking a few corporate websites.
As for Australia's defence and intelligence agencies, well, we're a branch office for America, and they let us in on a lot (but not all, obviously) of their stuff. That wouldn't happen unless the US agencies were comfortable that the only people that can hack in are, well, themselves...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
yeah, coz you know, with that American Might you can just block the entire country of north korea from having internet access 'at the flick of a switch'.
.. whatever country they're in, or from.
dufus. the internet is everywhere. you can't block all the connections that a 500-man organized team of hackers can set up for themselves
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Quote:
According to a report commissioned by the European Union, entitled Development of Surveillance Technology and the Risk of Abuse of Economic Information, the system has, since the dissolution of the Soviet Empire, been partially dedicated to industrial espionage.
According to the New York Times, the report claims that information gleaned through Echelon helped U.S. aerospace firm Boeing win a lucrative Saudi Arabian contract away from a European competitor, and that Echelon was used to help the American company Raytheon "win a bid for a $1.3 billion surveillance system for the Amazon forest away from Thomson-CSF, a French company."
Windows users:
Internet Explorer is obsolete. Please upgrade to Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
1. Create security firm in your neighborhood.
2. Write paranoid article in local journal.
3. Profit!
... surely we can just cut their net cables?
No net access, low hacking risk.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
The most out-of-shape military force on Earth. Their base of operations is their parents' basements. Their rations consist entirely of pizza and Bawls. Their uniform is jeans and a shirt with either the word "w00t!" (for grunts) or the phrase "i read your e-mail" (for officers). Their recruitment literature looks like this:
HungLo2099: d000dz!!!!11!1!! u could 500000 pwn amerkians!!!1!!!!!
Z3r0k3wl: kewl!!1! wehre do w3 sign up?
HungLo69: OMG america iz teh suck!!1!!1 OMGWTFLOLOLOLOL!!!!!1!!1!111!!11!oneone!1
HungLo2099: d00dz!! u also get free pizza and a t-shirt!!!!1!!!11!
Z3r0k3wl: w00t!
HungLo69: pwnage11!11!
Trust me, I've seen it.
Writhe your naked ass to the mindless groove.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As a closet Australian, I'd just to like to reassure everyone out there that there's nothing worth stealing in Australia anyway - not even information ... so it's all moot.
.... nothing to see here.
Move along
Servlet v2.4 container in a single 161KB jar file ? Try Winstone
Their base of operations is their parents' basements. Their rations consist entirely of pizza and Bawls.
Whoa. Don't insult your fellow Slashdotters. It's perfectly normal for a 30-year-old to live in his parents' basement. And pizza makes a fine meal -- how else could I have grown to be so, uhm, big and strong?
I don't need a signature.
...... should have kept it an island for criminals I tell ya....
-=Linsys=-
http://www.intrusionsec.com
That's not a root kit.
Here. Now this is a root kit, mate.
"cut a few cables" .. uh huh.
...
look, all it takes is *ONE* connection to the internet, in safe harbour somewhere, and they're back on again.
just forget it. there's no way to 'cut them all off' from the 'net. its a preposterous idea.
the only solution is diplomacy. these people clearly think that their position is the right one; well, why is that? learn the answer to that question, and use diplomacy
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Many people like to think that australia and new zealand are backwards counties down in the middloe of nowhere. In reality many of Australian businesses adopt technology and security standards much faster than thier US counterparts.
Its funny that many of the best security professionals throughout the 80s where based from Australia. This trend has continued and Australian businesses are often well prepared and secured. This is obviously a fairly big generalisation with companies like Optus having major breakings etc most of the major corporates in australia have a very good security history.
Stupid American!
We have storen yor trade secrets aready!
We now have factories that are assembring *your* most powerfu weapon ever. Frickin sharks with frickin rasers on their heads! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!
Yours trury,
Kim Jong-Il
With my sincerest apologies to Dr. Evil, South Park, and all the people in North Korea (where millions are suffering from starvation...)
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
don't know how other goverments handle this but here in estonia some goverment organisations don't connect their networks to the internet, all employees have 2 computers one for the sencitive data in the central network and for internet and other stuff
"The hacking army's mission is to break into South Korean, Japanese and American corporate networks to gather intelligence and steal trade secrets, according to reports."
So, if I understand correctly, Aussie businesses may be a softer target, but they aren't targeted.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
I learned this a couple days ago. The "First World" is made of Capitalist/Western countries, the "Second World" is made of Communist/Eastern countries, and "Third World" countries are those that don't fit into either catagory. So North Korea is really a Second World country, not 4th.
Join moola.com, play games to earn money.
I think that this report was perhaps written from an angle that assumes we ride kangaroos to school, after all we have to. They are the only thing that gets us out of range of those pesky crocs! IMHO - As a PhD comp-sci student 'down-under' we are FAR from being the bottom of the pile in the tech industry and further from being a soft electronic target. I'll worry about the north korea electonic threat when they can feed their own population!! -- Throw another shrimp on the barby luv!
Brought to you by the same people that guaranteed WMDs in Iraq and Osama captured within a year, and a link betwen them.
Wow, that Korean hacker training program must be tough... there were 600 of them a week ago.
...and it's getting riper. Sounds more like someone's trying to sell anti-hacker insurance. Personally, I'd be a lot more concerned about botnets than some alleged "security expert" warning about an "army of hackers" in some place he knows I can't check.
There. Thanks for letting me get that out.
3 posts and 2 are from the "I HATE AMERICA" crowd and have already been rated 5-interesting.
Don't you people ever sleep?
Every country practices espionage. EVERY country. The US, with its technical resources, has been very successful in the past in elint. The Soviets were particularly successful with their humint efforts.
I don't think anyone is saying the North Koreans don't have a 'right' to form their 'hackforce' (it's only leftists and liberals that talk about 'rights' in geopolitics anyway); I think the point is that their calling attention to it is the sort of attention-whoring that suggests that it's less a real exercise than cage-rattling.
-Styopa
"Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-my-own-Grandpa." - Dr Hubert Farnsworth
Important note to script kiddies: When hunting for ASP-"enabled" web sites for testing your SQL-injection skills, use a North Korean web proxy.
The Internet is more dangerous to them than it is to us. Plus, it's healthy for a system to get attacked now and then.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Learn history or be doomed to repeat it. This Stalinist state has been immune to diplomacy for the past 60 years. Nothing works. They have three world powers to play off against each other, and China has been shielding them to some extent since 1951.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS PROPOSAL
HAVING CONSULTED WITH MY COLLEAGUES AND BASED ON THE INFORMATION GATHERED FROM THE North Korean CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY, I HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO REQUEST FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE TO TRANSFER THE SUM OF $47,500,000.00 (FORTY SEVEN MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS) INTO YOUR ACCOUNTS.
They aren't competing in those markets so there is no real reason to deny them access to the info!
:)
Sigh technically superior communists who would have thunk it.
the only solution is diplomacy. these people clearly think that their position is the right one; well, why is that? learn the answer to that question, and use diplomacy ...
I think it is a bit more difficult than that. North Korea recently threatened to turn Japan into a "nuclear sea of fire" should the US attack NK with nukes.
Rhetoric like that shows just how insane this regime is, and how difficult diplomacy will be. If the DPRK ("Democratic Peoples" Republic of North Korea) had their way, they would be blackmailing their way to wealth using what nuclear power they can ammass. So good luck with diplomacy. And we should probably start our diplomacy by addressing the nuclear issue. Somehow I think that the issue of hacking is pretty low on the State Department's to-do list.
As a security professional in Australia, we're not behind at all. We patch our web servers, mail servers and use modern firewall appliances.
From the 80s we've been teaching the rest of the world how to hack. For a history lesson check Suelette Dreyfus's book Underground.
Australia invented the fax machine, fibre optic cabling and the black box flight recorder!
The hacking army's mission is to break into South Korean, Japanese and American corporate networks to gather intelligence and steal trade secrets, according to reports.
Gather intelligence of non-existant plans for North Korean campaigns? And gather trade secrets to keep them competitive in what? Subsistance farming? What do they even produce? You could ship trade secrets by the boat load and it wouldn't do them a bit of good.
Here's a link to an image of the Earth at night. Look at the border of the Koreas. North is dark, South is lit up. Many entire provinces of North Korea have electricity less than half of each day.8 /earth lights02_dmsp_big.jpg"
"http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/020
North Korea doesn't even have an actual link to the Internet of its own. It's government web site is run by an ISP in (IIRC) Taiwan, and its only connection to the Internet is provided by a South Korean telecom company, which also hosts its IP addresses.
I'd be a lot more worried about a mercenary group like Dyncorp hiring a bunch of hackers. Give them a couple million bucks to hire a herd of hackers, set them up in Vanuatu with a couple of T3 lines and they could shut down entire countries. The biggest problem would be keeping them on-target rather than attacking each others machines. Security isn't a concern, since no one ever listens to us geeks.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin