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Chinese Hacking of American Military Networks On the Rise
Anti-Globalism writes with this excerpt from the Guardian:
"China is stealing sensitive information from American computer networks and stepping up its online espionage, according to a US congressional panel. Beijing's investment in rocket technology is also accelerating the militarization of outer space and lifting it into the 'commanding heights' of modern warfare, the advisory group claims. ... A summary of the study, released in advance, alleges that networks and databases used by the US government and American defense contractors are regularly targeted by Chinese hackers. 'China is stealing vast amounts of sensitive information from US computer networks,' says Larry Wortzel, chairman of the commission set up by Congress in 2000 to investigate US-China issues."
The full study addresses these issues and others relating to the US-China relationship (PDF).
But how much is the USA ramping up their attacks on China?
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Perhaps I'm just too simple minded, but WHY ON EARTH is ANY of that information even accessible from the interwebz?
No you're not simple minded. Why indeed is it anywhere near the internet ESPECIALLY with a report telling us WE KNOW THERE"S A PROBLEM!.
America is sending all of it's wealth to China anyway and is happily enslaving future generations to chinese investors.
"Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." Sun Tsu. 2500 years ago so.
Deleted
US hacks China, China hacks US, where is the news in that? It's like watching two kids fight and both of them saying "He started it!" when in fact, they're both annoying little bastards.
This is propaganda. It's simply preparing the public for adding China to the Axis of Evil, erecting trade barriers etc.
Deleted
One of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever came as a result of US technology that was stolen by the Russians. Except, the CIA knew it was happening and instead of stopping it they decided to plant faulty chip designs. Once the USSR knew the tech was unreliable, they were stuck with one helluva an auditing problem, beyond their capability.
How much do you want to bet that somewhere on a "vulnerable" network, there are some designs that are just... a little... bit... off.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
They'll escalate it from there.
From TFA:
"says Larry Wortzel, chairman of the commission"
Larry Wortzel was:
http://www.heritage.org/about/staff/larrywortzel.cfm
who are:
http://www.heritage.org/about/
"Our Mission
Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute - a think tank - whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense."
Yah got to have a bogeyman.
Deleted
Every age needs bogey man.
It was part of the Farewell Dossier
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Perhaps this seems a bit extreme, but exactly WHY are these military computers even connected to the Internet? If it's really secret information, shouldn't they have their own network or just not put these things online?
This sends the message to the rest of the world that the US may not pay its debt to them if they do something the US does not like.... That would be a bad precedent, as we would soon find ourselves very isolated when it comes to finance and commerce...
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Beijing's investment in rocket technology is also accelerating the militarisation of outer space
Funny, I thought it was the US stance of space dominance that was accelerating militarisation of space.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
The pdf may be of interest to those studying relationships with China, but very little mention of any "cyber war" except part of chapter two that stresses its 'non-classified' information. The biggest hole in US computer security is Windows and how people use it. It is very common for 'users' of Windows not to set passwords, which just makes it even easier easier to penetrate the whole network. Hopefully, no Windows machine can even access classified information in the first place.
Unix isn't perfect either and again, its the human aspect that is the biggest risk. Anyone caught using an account with access to 'sensitive' or 'classified' without an adequate password should be warned, explained what a good password is and fired if they can't comply. It would seem that there is high compliance and regular audits anywhere 'classified' information can be accessed. Chapter 2 of the pdf only mentions 'unclassified' material, never mind all 'classified' material is created from 'unclassified' resources. Truly classified data should never be accessible from The Internet in any way, in the first place. Any information placed on, or close to The Internet should be considered 'public' on a worldwide basis.
Generally speaking, China uses the simplest, known techniques, to penetrate servers. Any admin can tell you how many dictionary attacks come from China. It is impossible to determine which ones are just 'script kiddies' or students and which are serious organized efforts. There is a very small rate of success from this method. Today it seems that these (Unix) machines are simply used to spread the simple scripts on a wider scale. Simply moving off port 22 (even to port 23) will stop 99% of the problem. Statistical programs that temporarily deny access to a certain IP address can be very effective as most scans never return, even if the access is denied for as little as five minutes. To combat the hardcore attempts where the attack returns, simply increase the 'access denied' time and ultimately blacklist the IP address and the whole net if necessary. (It is very rare it ever goes that far.)
In conclusion: Don't put classified information in the reach of The Internet. Never use any Microsoft product to view 'classified' or 'sensitive' information unless it can be assured there will never be any Internet connections of any sort. It is highly unlikely any government secrets leak out unless that was the intention, such as a "trial balloon". At this time, this is a non-problem that can be stopped. If absolutely nothing is done, it could escalate in much the way spam did. The official report appears to draw the same conclusion, however that is buried in a pile of irrelevant and off-topic material.
BillSF
I have seen this. I used to work in a start-up and saw 2 seperate incidents. In one case, I was hiring for coders. Found a gal who was interesting. She had married a GI and moved to Northern Colorado Springs. Since we could do the work over the line, not an issue. I interviewed her and she was not interested. That is, until I mentioned taht we were doing work for DOD and NSA. Then her attitude changed dramatically. She very much wanted the job. Ok, not a big deal.
But a year later, we were looking for funding. Found a Tawain born guy from Loveland who use to own the chinese restaurant there. He wanted to invest. But he insisted on getting control of the hardware (which was the important part) if we defaulted. When would company be considered defaulted? When he said so. Told him no way. So, then he wanted to buy hardware and said that he would sell it in mainland china and we could all be worth 30 million or more. The hardware was only 1M. But he explained that mainland was willing to pay 30 for it and might go higher. I was actually shocked since I considered him Tawainese and would not do that. My opinion changed when at a slashdot posting, a tawain native said that the chinese who came there STILL consider themselves chinese, not tawainese. The original guy may not have been a spy. But, he was all too happy to sell tech to them. More interestingly, he indicated that he had been in touch WITH mainland china.
No, this is absolutely not propaganda. This is VERY real. Chinese ppl are happy to see their country coming up. And I understand that. But chinese gov is STILL in a cold war with us. They are very much spying on the west and buying tech. whenever possible. And yes, it is the west, not just America. That includes countries like Japan, Australia, Canada, France, UK, Israel, etc and even Russia. In fact, I consider your statement far more propaganda, because you have NO IDEA of what you are talking about.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The reason is that China controls the currency and pretty much fixes it against the dollar. When the euro rises against the dollar, then yuan rises a bit as well. BUT, China is the one with the monster holding of our dollars and increasing at exponential rate. The yuen should be rising against the dollar if it was traded freely. But it is not. BTW, same issue with India.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
the DoD network will continue to be vulnerable as long as they insist on using windows. lest you think i'm a peacenik or something, i was a boom operator in the USAF for 20 years. i retired in 1997, and joined the local LUG. Alot of the members were NCO sysadmins from the base, who related that "all the officers coming out of the zoo (USAF Academy) only knew windows, and policy did not allow for anything else". So, being good NCOs, they snuck linux in the back door and had it running all over the place, as proxy servers, firewalls, etc. their officers didn't know about it, but as long as nobody complained and it made them look good, they were happy. then when they found out, and had it removed. problems increased dramatically soon thereafter. fuckin' zeros...they don't listen! MSgt, USAF (Ret.)
The DoD takes everything personally, and for good reason, but I have a steady stream of chinese hackers attempting to break into the router in my tool shed that reports battery voltage and temperature at a cabin that is inaccessible for 6 months of the year.
I really should put a webcam in there so they can see what they have achieved if they ever do manage to get in.
(22.1F, batteries 25.3V, 600 watt hours of energy stored today.)
And you guys claim to read Schneiier?? Consider this: if the Chinese are spying on our tech, we can stick it to them rather badly by lettng them find pointless dead end projects upon which to waste their treasure. everything is an opportunity... .max
IMHO Western countries are *not* comparable to dictatorships at all - not in the slightest. I am from Zimbabwe - that's all I claim as qualification.
Whether or not they are heavily influenced by powerful individuals, there are a lot more powerful and rich people in democracies so there are many interests to be satisfied and compromises to be made to keep parties in power. i.e. nobody can have it all their own way.
In dictatorships, anyone who appears even as if they *could* provide some challenge is mown down. This way the dictator *can* have everything the way they like it and in my country's case that turns out to be a very bad thing for everyone else.
This is all just my personal opinion.
"Chinese ppl are happy to see their country coming up"
;) ) are very happy to sell it to the Chinese government, for the right price.
And that Taiwanese guy was also "all too happy" to sell something that costs 1 million to the Chinese Government for 30 million.
30 million dollars. Not 2 million, not 1.5 million.
Oh yeah, it was because of patriotism or "The Love of China" that he gave them 50% off the original price of 60 million. That must be it eh?
Given what I know of Chinese people, it's far more likely that the Taiwanese guy was just seeing it as a great business opportunity - a chance to make lots of money.
You were the one with the "love for your country (or other thing)" which got in the way.
The Chinese government was willing to pay for US secrets. And chinese people (and other free market loving people
"I was actually shocked since I considered him Tawainese and would not do that"
Why wouldn't he do that? He's Taiwanese not American. Selling US tech to China _might_ only negatively affect Taiwan in the future, and even if it did, he and his family would have millions in the bank - so they could move to Australia or Singapore or wherever.
You appear to be joining the dots the wrong way.
It is not too hard to hack a network if you got
counterfeit hardware inside the network giving
you a backdoor in.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/05/12/FBI-worried-as-DoD-sold-counterfeit-Cisco-gear_1.html
So once they got in, they learned what they needed
to know to stay in, and put other methods in place
to stay in.
They are going to have to rebuild their network one segment
at a time from the ground up.
They need several things with one of them being segment
monitoring IDS system that can detect the outbound traffic.
Something that can track all outbound traffic against
a white-list of acceptable IPs, think a reverse peer guardian
that tracks what IP's are reached and snds alarms if they
are not on the list.
In any event they will have a monumental task of clearing
all the backdoors in the system, and should consider going
totally to a secure hardware+software encrypted VPN that
does not even travel over the public internet.
There is enough dark fiber out there to do it for the classified
material they transmit.
Also if most of your military traffic goes over the old
global crossing network, don't allow the public sale of
that network to a foreign nation with an oppposing ideology.
Namely China !
http://www.hereinreality.com/likashing.html
When you do stupid things, bad things happen.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"