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Black Duck Eggs and Other Secrets of Chinese Hacks
Roberto123 writes "Network World offers some insights into the way China infiltrates US organizations, physically and via computer, to steal information. Security expert Ira Winkler says there are far more serious threats out there than the 'laughable' uproar over China's hack of Google."
My local mexican restaurant regularly delivers blackened huevos rancheros. I wonder if they're in on this whole "restaurant espionage" thing, too?
The black egg anecdote was in Ira's 2005 book, 'Spies Among Us', which I do not recommend except for some of the stories like that.
Hate to blow you out of the water but the US government does leak private details of foreign companies collected by it's national security agencies. A good example was the US government being caught red handed leaking secret wheat price bids from Canadian companies to local US suppliers collected by the NSA. So if the US is happy to stab a trading partner like Canada in the back what do you think they are doing to none aligned entities like China!
I'm not saying it proves it was a spy front or not. I'm saying you are drawing conclusions based on incomplete information. If you are interested, perhaps you want to read more about it in his book.
The author didn't state it elegantly, but he still made the point -- Chinese industrial espionage is very real, is here now, and it is state-sponsored. China views hacking not only as a fast-track to becoming an industrial superpower, but they view it as a method of becoming a military superpower, too. A good part of China's military buildup involves locating and training talented young people, as well as hiring the already established hacker-underground folk for military purposes. They figure (probably correctly) that they are nowhere near capable of competing with the US military on a technological front, but if they can shut down our command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) networks (not coincidentally, this is also why they developed the satellite-killing missile), then they have essentially shut us down, especially for any military response to an attack on Taiwan.
Here are just a few examples of the many, many already known about cases of Chinese espionage.
- The infamous Cox Report (regarding the PRC stealing our most advanced nuclear weapon designs)
- The well-known Google attacks
- A Boeing engineer was sentenced to 15 years for espionage, selling rocket technology to the PRC
- The FBI caught an American with very high security clearance and a Taiwanese-American selling classified information about weapon-sales to Taiwan to the PRC.
- The British MI5 released a report detailing all kinds of Chinese espionage. For example, high-profile UK businessmen have been approached by PRC spies with lavish gifts which include USB flash drives infected with trojans to steal information, and in 2008, an aide to Gordon Brown had his Blackberry stolen after a sexy Chinese woman approached him in Beijing -- a classic, almost too classic to be true, Soviet-style tactic. Other diplomats, too, have been sexually blackmailed by the PRC to divulge information.
- Here is a research paper by Northrop Grumman regarding China's cyber-warfare abilities, 88 pages filled with the stuff. Turn to page 67 for a "Timeline of Significant Chinese Related Cyber Events 1999-Present," let alone the details of the rest of the paper which shows the large effort by the PRC to improve their cyber-warfare and espionage abilities.
Here are some more excerpts:
MI5 Report
The MI5 report described how China’s computer hacking campaign had attacked British defense, energy, communications and manufacturing companies, as well as public relations companies and international law firms. The document explicitly warned British executives dealing with China against so-called honey trap methods in which it said the Chinese tried to cultivate personal relationships, “often using lavish hospitality and flattery,” either within China or abroad.
“Chinese intelligence services have also been known to exploit vulnerabilities such as sexual relationships and illegal activities to pressurize individuals to cooperate with them,” it warned. “Hotel rooms in major Chinese cities such as Beijing and Shanghai which have been frequented by foreigners are likely to be bugged. Hotel rooms have been searched while the occupants are out of the room.”
You're a China hater. You might be right about family being important in Chinese culture, but it's not worship, by any means. You make us sound like non-humans. I have to try not to get angry at your war mentality, but instead put forth my understanding.
Family is a different concept in Chinese culture, it works like this: In Western culture, Mother may say one thing, and Grandmother may say another thing, but ultimately Mother gets her say.
In traditional Chinese culture, and I put a strong emphasis on traditional, Grandmother may say one thing, and Mother will go along with it. After all, she's older. Please bear in mind that with the new urbanization in China, this style is shifting as the fast-paced change in urban society makes it harder for older people to remain saavy their entire lives.
So, we Chinese are people too. Please be nice.
The Israeli Narus products have long been suspected of being state-sponsored. Given the number of deep packet inspection devices that come out Israeli companies, designed to monitor backbones, this isn't surprising.