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Cyber Attacks on US Linked to Chinese Military?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the not-the-kind-of-concrete-i-would-build-a-house-on dept.

wiredog writes "Security expert Bruce Schneier is reporting on a continuing effort to penetrate US government and industry computer systems that most likely stems from the Chinese military." From the Terranet article: "The attacks have been traced to the Chinese province of Guangdong, and the techniques used make it appear unlikely to come from any other source than the military, said Alan Paller, the director of the SANS Institute, an education and research organization focusing on cybersecurity."

31 of 698 comments (clear)

  1. The mouse click heard 'round the world? by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Is a war already starting in the virtual realm?

    Take, for example this story which includes the quote:
    The Chinese government, in particular, sees its reliance on Microsoft as a potential threat. Conspiracy buffs believe certain patches in the Windows code might give U.S. authorities the power to access Chinese networks and disable them, possibly during a war over Taiwan.


    Let's not forget how important our information infrastructures are and how dependent we have been on computers for quite sometime. Let's also not forget common rules of war one of which is cutting off an enemy's supply line ASAP to reduce their cone of influence. A pre-emptive move to "test the waters" of U.S. security by China would not surprise me.
    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:The mouse click heard 'round the world? by Serveert · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Conspiracy buffs believe certain patches in the Windows code might give U.S. authorities the power to access Chinese networks and disable them, possibly during a war over Taiwan.

      It happened once, could happen again:

      CIA slipped bugs to Soviets
       
      In January 1982, President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to sabotage the economy of the Soviet Union through covert transfers of technology that contained hidden malfunctions, including software that later triggered a huge explosion in a Siberian natural gas pipeline, according to a new memoir by a Reagan White House official.

      --
      2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
    2. Re:The mouse click heard 'round the world? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Faith in the US dollar plunges to an all-time low. See you on bread line.

      Thereby making US manufacturers competetive again and thus driving down the US unemployment rate. But since we are already close to full employment, plus the fact that the budget deficit (as opposed to the trade deficit) can no longer be paid for by selling T-Bills to the rest of the world, we get an increase in US inflation rates forcing the Fed to drive up US interest rates. But the increase in US interest rates entices the US into raising its savings rate thus cutting US current consumption. Although the lower dollar makes our exports attractive to Europe further exacerbating the full employment problem. Bottom line: Lots of Chinese out of work and most Americans (except those who work for WalMart which has to make some serious adjustments finding new suppliers) make out like bandits.

    3. Re:The mouse click heard 'round the world? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Most of your manufacturing has been outsourced to China. What do you plan to wage war with?

    4. Re:The mouse click heard 'round the world? by Ex-MislTech · · Score: 2, Interesting

      China is waiting for us to go "all in" in the middle east .

      In fact they might be tipping that to happen behind the scenes .

      Total supposition there .

      I think they see it as a game of patience, and feel that once we are fully and
      royally screwed in the mid east, they will then take back Taiwan .

      Which by the way was part of china, before the USA existed .

      I don't agree with what china is doing, but that is the facts .

      The funniest thing of it all is we paid china to do it by whoring out most of our
      economy to them just for the sake of greed , stupid politicians and corporations .

      I think they hoped they could turn china into a democracy via capitalism , but I don't think
      their gambit is going to work .

      I think it would have gone a LOT better for us if Mr. Clinton had not authorized ICBM guidance
      technology to them from Loral for campaign contributions .

      But I think we will "blink" when we see the Chinese take Taiwan in a matter of a few days
      with VERY little resistance due to the sheer size of the assault .

      In the US, less than 5% of ppl serve in the military, In china it is near 100% for at least 2 years .

      Just in percentages it is staggering, then you remember they outnumber us 4 to 1 .

      Manpower available for military service 342 million, that is over the US total population
      and 5 times the size of our estimated possible forces .

      Where as the majoroty of china serves at least 2 years military service, less than 5% here do,
      and thus they are trained and we are not .

      We could not beat the North Vietnamese, or the North Koreans, we may see them side with china
      when the game is afoot .

      Makes bad look even worse doesn't it ???

      A few others like Malaysia and Indonesia may throw in with them as well and have been rather
      outspoken of their distaste for the US and non-muslims .

      The scars of WW2 are fresh in china's mind, and japan will likely we treated in the same manner
      as the president of Iran wants to treat israel, ie. wiped off the face of the map .

      If you are in japan, and you hear taiwan has fallen, get a plane ticket, boat ticket, or a rubber
      raft and oar and paddle like there is no tomorrow because revenge is on its way .

      Riots in china's streets over Koizumi visiting a military shrine in japan speak to the level
      of anger that still boils , 60 years later .

      The shadows of WW3 are long, and they cover most of the world, and it will be a war like none
      the earth has seen before, and I think it is honestly already under way .

      Ex-MislTech

      --
      google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
    5. Re:The mouse click heard 'round the world? by neomunk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I remember readng somewhere about the differences in the US and USSR strategies during the later part of the cold war... See, while the soviets were putting up hunter-killer satellites to disable our satellites during a war scenario, we (the US) were just making sure all the backdoors we had installed in the soviet satellites were working correctly. Tell ya what, I think it IS kinda foolish to assume that a cyberwar hasn't been raginig for a while now, or at least a cybercoldwar where the backdoors are being planted but the DoS attacks haven't started up yet.

    6. Re:The mouse click heard 'round the world? by kwoff · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's interesting to think of it that way, but I think you're twisting words. If the US for some reason gave $100 billion to, say, Mexico, would you say that we'd lost a war with Mexico? How about if the US gave $10 million to Canada, did they sucker us out of that money using their leet Sun Tsu teknix? If I give $5 to someone begging for change, have they taken the initiative in our little social war? You seem to be implying that China and India were sitting there waiting for the right moment to pounce.

      Furthermore, I don't have much trust in the $1 trillion number you gave, or that it has any meaning. I also would prefer to have real information, rather than relying on a newsworthy (money-making) story that claims that OMFG the Chinese military is attacking us!!!

      In the attacks, Paller said, the perpetrators "were in and out with no keystroke errors and left no fingerprints, and created a backdoor in less than 30 minutes. How can this be done by anyone other than a military organization?"

      Amazing logic there!

  2. Blame Game by biocute · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does this sound like another blame game when something bad happens in USA? If they have already traced the source and still couldn't fend it off, I don't know what they would do next, calling President Hu?

    These attacks come from someone with intense discipline. No other organization could do this if they were not a military organization

    Does this rhyme with "Space exploration is both demanding and dangerous. No other nations could do this if they did not have a space shuttle".

    --
    Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
    1. Re:Blame Game by IAAP · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Does this sound like another blame game when something bad happens in USA?

      China == "Goldstein"? See 1984 by George Orwell

  3. Propaganda machine in action? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This was brought up on my local SAGE mailing list earlier. Someone brought up the good point: Aren't there an awful lot of news stories recently (heck, there've been three on /. in the past few days) villianizing China? Almost as if some large government- or media-induced program is going on to remind us how Evil they are and influence the collective consciousness to be in favor of breaking off relations with the most populous nation on Earth? (Or, to some extreme, treating them like our last Axis of Evil?)

  4. Act of War by bluffcityjk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does this, combined with the Air Force's new mission statement, constitute an Act of War?

  5. Act of War by Mr._Galt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If this can be proven, this is an act of war. Tell me again why China has Most Favored Nation status? WWIII seems close at hand.

  6. Oh this is new news ..... not by JMemonic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just ask anyone involved in the free Tibet movement or any of the ISP's that host websites with the words free Tibet, they used to get massive attacks from DOS right through to serious and well planned attempts to hack these sites. Spent an entire week assisting the fending off of one of these and having to rebuild a server after the attack got through with it.

  7. A lone voice by RM6f9 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Crying "Peace" - what purpose can it possibly serve to alert the media that attempts are being made? Who are the terrorists: Those attempting entry, or those publicizing the attempts? Or is some group setting up an attempt at justifying some potential action?
    Peace, please.

    --
    Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
  8. Re:Politically Incorrect by Eli+Gottlieb · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's not so much "Freedom is on the March" as "Corporate Capitalism-based Command Economy is on the March".

    Once you realize that this is becoming a country by, for, and of The Management most of the rest of government policy becomes extraordinarily clear.

  9. Nothing New by Evil+W1zard · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Tons of scans and pen attempts have been coming out of the Guangdong Province for years. Funny thing is if you trace the scan back to the IP admin and etc... you can often Google the names listed as contacts and find they are linked to Chinese IW...

    This is not big news IMO just a resurfacing of info that has been seen before... (FUD for new book sales maybe?)

    --
    News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
  10. China is a threat by teutonic_leech · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Sorry people, but China is growing at such an 'alarming' rate that it represents a clear and present threat to the United States. China outnumbers us by approx. 4:1 and they are smart - very smart. The government is corrupt and a lot of innocent (poor) people within China are suffering as a result on a daily basis. I don't have anything against the Chinese people, but I sure do not want their government start excerting more control over our lifes and our economies. On a pure economical basis, this whole 'globalization' business is ruining small (and large) businesses all over the planet - they just cannot compete. That's the way the cookie crumbles however and we cannot turn back the clock and will have to deal with that or at least wait until the cost of living in China approaches that common in the West.
    Politically, China scares the jibbers out of me and we need to be smart not to hand the reigns over to them. Things are going to get ugly as we are increasingly experiencing a raw materials and fossile fuel shortage in the coming decades.

  11. Our debt by snoopyjd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have always thought that our growing debt would make a good reason for our leaders to consider war. Has to be better than he made fun of my daddy.

    --
    LIVE, Love, die
  12. Anti-Chinese Sentiments by Anti-Trend · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While I agree with the gist of what you're saying, my firewall logs are constantly filled with hack attempts originating from our Chinese cyber-neighbors. What I'd be interested to know is whether these are concentrated attacks (most do not seem to be) or whether China's tenancy towards software piracy has become a problem for them. Would it surprise anyone if many widely-circulated, Chinese-pirated copies of Windows XP were pre-infected with trojan rootkits? In that case the botnets would be deployed from the moment the OS was installed. That being said, the responsibility ultimately lies with them either way.

    --
    Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
  13. U.S. is naive. by torokun · · Score: 5, Interesting


    I have been worried for a long time about the apparent naivete of the U.S. government and military regarding the Chinese.

    The Chinese government and military are extremely savvy so long as they are not blinded by their communist dogma. When it comes to trade, information, spying, and weapons technology, they understand the reality that those who play fair lose.

    If you are a businessman, have no illusions that your papers and files are safe in your hotel room in China. There have been documented cases of government-sponsored spies following businessmen and bugging or entering their hotel rooms to scour their belongings for useful trade secrets and intellectual property.

    We can see clearly that they are pursuing a strategy of mercantilism in trade, to our great disadvantage, thanks to the cluelessness of free-traders in Congress and the White House.

    Who can doubt that the same issues exist with regard to sensitive military information? The Chinese sponsor students to come to the U.S. with the express goal sometimes of infiltrating research staffs and supplying tech info back to China. The same surely occurs with U.S. government and military employees, although the screening is more thorough.

    In my opinion, the CHinese government would see hacking U.S. government or military sites as a requirement for successful international competition. Hopefully, the NSA and others like them are on top of the problem. I don't doubt, though, that they have gained access to lots of systems on the lower end of the confidentiality spectrum.

    It needs to be impressed on people in government, military, and intelligence work, that the Chinese are playing one mean game of chess in everything they do vis-a-vis the U.S. Their sense of time spans centuries and millennia rather than decades. Any suspicious activity on their part needs to be treated with the greatest skepticism by our guys, rather than with apathy or giving them the benefit of the doubt...

    1. Re:U.S. is naive. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      As a citizen of the UK I think we need to treat americas actions with the same level of cynicism torokun applies to the Chinese above.

      Just look at the way rebuilding contracts have been awarded in Iraq. The fact that US companies were awarded any mobile telecommunictions contracts is ridiculous. Especially when better, more experienced companies from the UK and Japan were bidding for the same contracts.

      Come to think of it, if you applied the level of paranoia above you might even question the reason to go to war with Iraq in the first place.

      (PS - Incidentally I think Torokun is dead right about the Chinese, just also very naive if he thinks his own government is any better.)

    2. Re:U.S. is naive. by Incadenza · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you are a businessman, have no illusions that your papers and files are safe in your hotel room in China. There have been documented cases of government-sponsored spies following businessmen and bugging or entering their hotel rooms to scour their belongings for useful trade secrets and intellectual property.

      We can see clearly that they are pursuing a strategy of mercantilism in trade, to our great disadvantage, thanks to the cluelessness of free-traders in Congress and the White House.

      If you are a businessman, have no illusions that your electronic correspondence is safe _anywhere_, thanks to your 'naive' US. Ever heard of the uses of Echelon in your so-called 'free trade'?

      Some quotes from the link above:

      * In 1990 the German magazine Der Speigel revealed that the NSA had intercepted messages about an impending $200 million deal between Indonesia and the Japanese satellite manufacturer NEC Corp. After President Bush intervened in the negotiations on behalf of American manufacturers, the contract was split between NEC and AT&T.
      * In 1994, the CIA and NSA intercepted phone calls between Brazilian officials and the French firm Thomson-CSF about a radar system that the Brazilians wanted to purchase. A US firm, Raytheon, was a competitor as well, and reports prepared from intercepts were forwarded to Raytheon.
      * In September 1993, President Clinton asked the CIA to spy on Japanese auto manufacturers that were designing zero-emission cars and to forward that information to the Big Three US car manufacturers: Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. In 1995, the New York Times reported that the NSA and the CIA's Tokyo station were involved in providing detailed information to US Trade Representative Mickey Kantor's team of negotiators in Geneva facing Japanese car companies in a trade dispute. Recently, a Japanese newspaper, Mainichi, accused the NSA of continuing to monitor the communications of Japanese companies on behalf of American companies.
      * Insight Magazine reported in a series of articles in 1997 that President Clinton ordered the NSA and FBI to mount a massive surveillance operation at the 1993 Asian/Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) hosted in Seattle. One intelligence source for the story related that over 300 hotel rooms had been bugged for the event, which was designed to obtain information regarding oil and hydro-electric deals pending in Vietnam that were passed on to high level Democratic Party contributors competing for the contracts. But foreign companies were not the only losers: when Vietnam expressed interest in purchasing two used 737 freighter aircraft from an American businessman, the deal was scuttled after Commerce Secretary Ron Brown arranged favorable financing for two new 737s from Boeing.

      "Yes, I'm paranoid - But am I paranoid enough?"

  14. Anybody remember the first rule of hacking? by SealBeater · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's never hack from home. Now, even if the Chinese are actively trying to
    hack us, (why not, I am sure it's not just them and I'll bet money we are doing
    it too), why would they source an attack from their primary location? Even if
    the "attacks" are coming from there, that doesn't mean it's the Chinese. It
    could be an American or British kid who took over a box there. And I gotta
    tell you, if it were me, I would bounce my traffic around the world twice
    before I even took a look at a .gov or .mil. I'm pretty sure so called
    "military trained" hackers backed by the Chinese government could and would
    have far more resources and could cover their tracks better than that. If it
    were me, I would have all the attacks sourced from Britian or Iserail, or some
    other friendly US ally. Color me suspicious.

    SealBeater

    --
    -- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
  15. marketplace by rodentia · · Score: 4, Interesting

    American corporations will not stand for being refused entry to a market encompassing a sixth of the world's population. This pressure began to build in the seventies and has only increased. This is the determining factor in all US/China dialogue.

    --
    illegitimii non ingravare
  16. Re:Politically Incorrect by Kev_Stewart · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I agree with you but prefer to take a more optimistic view. Things ARE getting better in China.

    At the risk of getting modded as a troll, I'm not convinced that democracy would work in a country of over 1.3 billion people. It's a very delicate infrastructure that's holding that entire country together.

    The Chinese government feels that their often brutal enforcement of it's policies is preferable to the anarchy that would result from allowing the people to challenge the status quo. It's an awful thing to say but they do have a point. Any sizable civil unrest in China could collapse that very delicate infrastructure and could lead to tens of millions of people starving to death.

    As China continues to prosper, hopefully one day a democracy of sorts will be established. The signs are already there. In spite of certain news stories you might hear, the govermnent IS clamping down on local corruption and IS gaining confidence in it's people's abilities to govern themselves locally - maybe even allowing the people to choose their local govenor one day?

    The prosperity that comes from trading with the rest of the world is fuelling that confidence. The only thing standing in the way of these changes are the idiots who say "stop trading with China because their government is horrible".

    Oh and it's OBVIOUS that they're poking around US millitary systems. The rest of the world is doing it - why not China ;-)

  17. Re:Block 'em at the firewall by SCHecklerX · · Score: 3, Interesting

    well, lessee. I work for a global company. We happen to have offices and plants in china. Those offices are connected directly to the rest of our WAN via IPSec. I'm sure we are part of the majority of American companies in this respect. Do you really think the government that favors corporations over individuals is going to cut those corporations off?

  18. Re:I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords(not by Guppy06 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "The economies are indeed too dependant on each other."

    The same was said about Britain and Germany in 1913.

  19. Re:Does anyone ever stop and think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I hear this idiotic idea constantly, and I don't understand how people can be so ignorant. If China wants to reclaim their debt they'll have to do what every other lender in the world does: wait for us to pay back the loan. That's how a loan works, after all. You give me a chunk of money up front, and I pay you back over time. You don't get to demand all your money back at once, that's not in the contract.

    Furthermore, doing this would hurt China just as much as it would us. If they could demand immediate repayment we would default and they would be abandoning their investments!

    China: Here's a trillion dollar loan.
    USA: Gee thanks.
    China: Give us our money back, bitch!
    USA: No. And we're stopping our payments.
    China: ... shit ...

    Pretty much the same is true if they decided to flood the market by selling off all their US investments. It would drive the price of US currency down, but they would bear the brunt of that depreciation. Plus, the world demand for US investments has always outpaced supply, so the depreciation would not even be that significant.

  20. Re:Ho, Ho! Good luck, China! by ta+ma+de · · Score: 2, Interesting

    High quality goods are a lot less expensive in China. Many of the new shopping malls in China have over twice the square footage as the pentagon. Though they make less money it goes farther. Also comparing GDP per person doesn't work well when the ratio is on the order of 4:1. When you factor the change in working population the China's GDP per person isn't bad. With the growth rate of a conservative %8, the GDP per person in China will double in 10 years, making them the number one player. A number one player with a much lower payroll that goes farther.

  21. Hugo Chavez is a puppet of Fidel Castro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Chavez is a puppet of Fidel Castro; he is just a pawn on Castro's plan to turn Latin America against the US, a pawn that has a lot of oil for Castro to use for that goal. It is funny that Chavez uses the threat of American interventionism to foster nationalism, when he has sold Venezuela and all of its riches to Castro, the most terrible dictator in power today.

    About the freedom, tell that to the union leader (Carlos Ortega) that just yesterday was sentenced to 15 years of prison for striking against the government, or to the public workers that were told by an oficialist senator that they would be fired if they didn't vote for the government.

  22. Re:Ho, Ho! Good luck, China! by ergo98 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Consider going to Bejing, Shanghai or Hong Kong.

    Beijing is hardly a futuristic city (not really sure why you included that one. It's a beautiful city, but it hardly fits in with the other two). Hong Kong's prosperity is completely and absolutely the result of the British rule and law, and it has diminished since the takeover.

    If you go to Shanghai you should try the sooper high speed mag-lev train.

    One thing about a statist economy is that you can put billions towards really dumb money sinks, all to get gullible citizens and tourists to proclaim about how futuristic it is. I hear Brazilia in Brazil is a real futuristic city as well.

    I was really surprised by the whole energy of the place. When I went to McDonalds and they didn't have my food immediately, they said no problem we will find you and bring it to you when its ready. 2 min latter I had my fries. This particular McDonald's had around 30 registers all open. They said that they served 6000 lunches everyday -- just nuts. You won't find any fast food resturant in the US that can manage that volume and provide good service too.

    You're impressed that they brought your food to you? Wow, your opinion really needs to be considered suspect. Fastfood restaurants everywhere bring food to you.

    Regarding the McDonalds being big --- if that's your measure of prosperity... That's like saying that a town is a great town because they have the largest Walmart. I'm going to have to presume that you're being sarcastic.

    In closing, the US needs to sell $3,000,000,000 in bonds everyday to China just to keep running. If they really wished us harm they could just stop buying our debt. Once China no longer relies on exports we will be at their mercy. That will happen in around 10 - 20 years just when the US needs money to fund SS payments to baby-boomers.

    Ah, good old fear mongering and ignorant economics. Ignoring the fact that China isn't a big financer of debt (and hasn't been for some time), countries don't buy bonds because they're benevolent - they do it for their own best interest. In the case of China they buy up US $ (and formerly bonds) to prop up the dollar, which keeps the yuan undervalued and serves China.

    Secondly, if China did something (ignoring that they couldn't do anything that could be rapidly circumvented) they would punish the US $, depreciating their own holdings in US bonds (most of which can't be cashed in for years and decades. Boy, win win!

    Idiots that don't have the slightest clue about economics, and that are wide-eyed about isolated advantages (OMG! I hear that North Korea has gigantic pyramid towers! They must be super first world!) should just keep their ignorance to themselves. China is eventually joining the ranks of the first world, and will soon earn some "problems" like citizens that don't like being poisoned by the air and water, and who like some rights, but this pissy nonsense about how the US is doomed reeks of ignorance.