Foreign Hackers Attack Canadian Government

An anonymous reader writes " According to the CBC: 'An unprecedented cyberattack on the Canadian government from China has given foreign hackers access to highly classified federal information, and forced at least two key departments off the internet, CBC News has learned. The attack, first detected in early January, left Canadian counter-espionage agents scrambling to determine how much sensitive government information may have been stolen and by whom.' It should be noted that the Auditor-General warned of this months ago and was ignored by everyone as she usually is. It should also be noted that public sentiment towards China is getting very, very testy."

Comments

China Ain't Too Bright

[kyrio]

Attacking every country for gains which are likely worth nothing. Great way to get yourself banned from the playground.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[c0lo]

Great way to get yourself banned from the playground.

This can't happen overnight... it already owns too many balls, not to mention the playground and some referees... better get used to how the game is played nowadays.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[antifoidulus]

It's actually a lot more complicated than this. China buys a TON of natural resources from Canada(and info on said resources is probably one of the most likely targets). Canada is probably in even more of a bind vis a vis China then the United States is. While Canada's government isn't nearly as indebted to the Chinese as the Americans are, the Canadian economy depends much more on selling to China than the US economy does. Of course on the flip side if you eliminate access to Canadian resources all of a sudden Chinese manufacturing becomes much more uncompetitive.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[thoughtsatthemoment]

Obvious China ain't too bright attacking every country for gains which are likely worth nothing. It should attacking every country for gains which are worth a lot and single out inexperienced players like China as the bad guy. Or China shloud build it's own playground and pretend to be the good guy.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[Compaqt]

No kidding. When will they learn there's no money in moose futures?

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[merlock18]

Seward wouldn't agree.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[merlock18]

They arent attacking anyone. They are data mining ilegally and getting caught. Espionage isnt an attack yet. Theyre getting really close though...

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[Mashiki]

Canada's largest export partner is the US, the second is Europe(all). All of Asia combined ranks 3rd, but we still export more materials to Japan and India than China. Unless you're counting either coal, or nickle. Really if you eliminate Canadian resources? The world goes for a shit spin, mighty fast because ~30-35% of the market just went poof.

Really though? If China pulls shit and we take our ball and go home, not much will happen in Canada. We have other markets(south america, and russia--along with various others not mentioned) which we can continue to supply goods to. It will hurt china more, than it will hurt us.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually a lot more complicated than this. China buys a TON of natural resources from Canada(and info on said resources is probably one of the most likely targets). Canada is probably in even more of a bind vis a vis China then the United States is. While Canada's government isn't nearly as indebted to the Chinese as the Americans are, the Canadian economy depends much more on selling to China than the US economy does. Of course on the flip side if you eliminate access to Canadian resources all of a sudden Chinese manufacturing becomes much more uncompetitive.

Well, Canada could always sell these resources to India instead. The two countries are currently in free trade talks:

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/11/12/canada-india-free-trade.html

One interesting fact about China is that its current average age is 40, so in twenty years it will be 60. India has an average age of about 20 currently.

China is probably approaching the height of its economic power before its population becomes silver, and so they're racing to become rich before they get old.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[Ihmhi]

Well, the Canadians told them to get away from their shitty firewall, but the Chinese wouldn't listen.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[c0lo]

Next time, ask them kindly using the "Guo Biao Kuozhan" charset, the Simplified Chinese won't do (and, for the sake of God, don't try French or Vietnamese scripts, too many accents... makes the writing too complicated to understand ;) )

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[commodore6502]

"Attack" seems a poor choice of words. In the cold war days we simply called this "spying" or "espionage". The fact the spies are now sitting behind computers instead of sneaking into buildings doesn't require a new word.

It's really just gov't propaganda. "Oh horror! Our country was ATTACKED! We need to lockdown the internet, so we can save you."

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[lorenlal]

That or... Maybe they're trying to find a way to get access to SIPRNet? Canada is a trusted ally of the United States and does have access to some of our secure networks.

The chances of actually getting access to SIRPNet would be low, but maybe the possible payoff is enough for them to try anyway?

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[Trails]

Of course it is!!! China's population is entirely static. No one is being born and no one will die. In 1200 years their average age will be 1240!!! Then they're really fucked.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[MasaMuneCyrus]

It actually did happen overnight -- but due to the Senkaku Islands incident. The entire world is scrambling to create alternatives to China, and East-Asian nations are basically saying, "USA, get back in here!"

The fact is that, while people around the world adore "China," nobody likes the People's Republic, their leadership, their ideals, or their actions. That dislike is rapidly turning into animosity, both from the public and officials. Except maybe Myanmar and Pakistan.

It's worth mentioning that Chinese people don't like the government, either.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[kevinNCSU]

One interesting fact about China is that its current average age is 40, so in twenty years it will be 60.

It scares me that this might not be a joke, and that is has been modded Interesting. Windmills do not work that way!

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[aveldina]

Which part of the country do you live in? In general it seems you're correct. However it's worth mentioning that out here in the frozen prairies much of the current economic strength, especially in Saskatchewan, has been coming from potash. You can't hear a discussion about potash and not hear China mentioned at least once, China is a huge buyer of the potash produced here. The price of potash has gone up significantly in recent years and they rely on it. Having China refuse to buy potash might not hurt people out in the east, but in the prairies we certainly would be impacted by it.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[ffreeloader]

Well, with their policies on their own people having children, their average age pretty much has to keep on going up for the foreseeable future. The way it is, for every child there has to be at least two adults. Most likely it's going to be 6 adults per child fairly soon as grandparents on each side of the family will have only 1 grandchild between them. That's 4 grandparents and 2 parents per child, plus any great-grandparents.. The average age is going to rise rapidly.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[realityimpaired]

Well, it's a language barrier thing. Canadian for "fuck off" is "would you please consider leaving at your convenience?" :)

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[Trails]

Yes, because the children today have no grandparents. Grand parents are clearly trending upward.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[Antisyzygy]

Actually, I work with quite a few Chinese people at a lab here in Houston. This is what they told me. If you are an only child, and you marry someone who is an only child, then you can have two children. However, if either parent is not an only child they can only have one child. It used to be 1 child per family, but they changed it.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[Antisyzygy]

China attacks by erosion. They steal American product ideas, produce them cheaper in China, and out compete us. Then there is the hacking seemingly not so interesting things. However, over time, they accumulate a significant advantage.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Meh, your neighbors down here in the south (The U.S.) could probably buy up your potash, as we seem completely intent on shutting down all of our own mines of the stuff. (Mostly because the neighbors think is smells bad, from what I can gather).

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[cyfer2000]

"One interesting fact about China is that its current average age is 40, so in twenty years it will be 60. "

This is interesting indeed. In two years, I am going to be as old as my elder brother. This makes me happy.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[Nadaka]

The Communist Party is China is the Han race is the Communist Party.

They are a racist authoritarian theocratic (their religion is the Communist Party) regime with a lot of support from a lot of their citizens.

There are exceptions, but most of them either left china, have been imprisoned/killed or say nothing out of fear.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[tixxit]

There seems to be a trend of people overestimating the Chinese market. China is still largely an export country. They have tons of their own natural resources and they have artificially kept their dollar low to keep the flow of goods going out and not coming in.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[gfreeman]

The US will stop importing oil way before China stops importing potash. A billion mouths have to be fed somehow.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[Anonymous Coward]

p>This can't happen overnight... it already owns too many balls

with a billion people, around 50% male.....that must be like a billion balls

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[Abstrackt]

Well, it's a language barrier thing. Canadian for "fuck off" is "would you please consider leaving at your convenience?" :)

As a Canadian, this comment offends me. Sorry about that.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[Anonymous Coward]

It is like saying "China will not buy Alberta oil" - the statement is idiotic and pointless. China needs potash, so it will have to get it elsewhere. Then Canada will sell to countries that cannot get them from those sources anymore. This just means more shipping and higher prices for everyone.

I hope this was clear enough. It applies just the same to ALL resources.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[Khyber]

You dropping potash exports would just make us buy it up here in the USA or Europe.

Our farms need that.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[Xer0ss]

As one Canadian to another would you please consider leaving at your convenience?

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[Mashiki]

I live in Ontario. But you're right, in the prairies(atleast sk), the talk of the day for the last couple of years has been china and potash. In Manitoba, it's grain exports to europe, in alberta it's exports of oil/coal/other minerals like copper to everywhere. In BC it's mainly forestry, gold, and fish(like out on the east coast). Ontario in the south is mainly ahhhfuck...where's the industry at? Northern it's tourism, mining, and forestry. Quebec? Yeah well...most of that is power generation and exports of it to the US with a few other things. And of course the far north is diamonds, and gold.

If China refuses to buy potash, we can sell anywhere to anyone. That market is limitless, especially when you consider that there's a shortage of it in europe and australia right now.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[tqk]

Well, it's a language barrier thing. Canadian for "fuck off" is "would you please consider leaving at your convenience?" :)

As a Canadian, this comment offends me. Sorry about that.

Well, as another Canadian, you're not allowed to feel offended at that. Canucks have kicked holy butt down through the years. Ask the Dutch what they think of us. Ask my dad what it was like to freeze your butt off in the tail of a B-17 bomber acting as targets to make the me-109s come up to try to kill you.

Besides, Const. Benton Fraser made one hell of a great gig out of exactly this (Due South). "Thank you kindly." No need for beligerence. I'll hold the door open for you to leave. Good day.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[tqk]

with a billion people, around 50% male.....that must be like a billion balls

Considering the vast majority of those males come by two naturally, you're off by a factor of fifty?

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[tqk]

Sorry, ignore that comment please & thanks.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[tqk]

It's actually a lot more complicated than this. China buys a TON of natural resources from Canada ...

Which is pretty damned incredible when you stop to think about it. How the heck does Canada have a market in China when China's next door to Russia, the rest of the Orient, and Europe?!? Russia ought to be cleaning up, yet we ship across the Pacific?

Weird.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[QRDeNameland]

Well, it's a language barrier thing. Canadian for "fuck off" is "would you please consider leaving at your convenience?" :)

Actually, Canadian for "fuck off" is Fuddle Duddle.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[tqk]

If you're an ethnic minority (i.e. not Han), your allowances are doubled (i.e. two children, or up to four if the above exceptions apply to you also).

Er, what? China's promoting ethnic diversity? What're they doing that for? I thought they were into persecuting it or ignoring it exists.

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[tqk]

Yeah, you refuted that argument real well. :-P

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[QRDeNameland]

China buys a TON of natural resources from Canada.

What's the opposite of hyperbole? Hypobole?

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[rarespotted]

It's actually a lot more complicated than this. China buys a TONNE of natural resources from Canada(and info on said resources is probably one of the most likely targets). Canada is probably in even more of a bind vis a vis China then the United States is. While Canada's government isn't nearly as indebted to the Chinese as the Americans are, the Canadian economy depends much more on selling to China than the US economy does. Of course on the flip side if you eliminate access to Canadian resources all of a sudden Chinese manufacturing becomes much more uncompetitive.

Fixed that for you ;)

Re:China Ain't Too Bright

[laddiebuck]

Right, so if your first child is a girl or mentally deficient, or you're very, very rich, or you're not a member of the dominant race, then you can have a second child... Right, so none of the conditions are exactly calculated to increase the productive workforce then, are they now?

trojan

[mirix]

I was sort of half asleep on the drive home, but the radio made it sound like some moron installed a trojan (presumably hot_pic_of_me.jpg.exe), which then scraped internal networks (that should have had better access control, no doubt) for anything interesting. It was pretty vague but that's about what I picked up from it.

Sounds like amateur night anyhow. Maybe they've got HBGary running their security.

Why even connect sensitive computers to the net?

[KClaisse]

What I can't seem to wrap my head around is why they would even have that kind of information on a computer that is open to the internet. Why on earth would you expose sensitive computers to the world for anyone to hack? It just doesn't make sense to me.

How far is too far?

[Haffner]

All the news of China's hacking attempts, compounded with the links many of those have to government, begs the question: "How far is too far?" When will the US (or the international community) hold China accountable and force them to stop these actions? The way I see it, what they are doing is worse than firing shells over a border. This could easily be a buildup for a larger attack, yet no one has done anything substantial yet.

Re:How far is too far?

[migla]

The US or the international community won't force China. We only force weak countries that don't pose any real threat, like Saddams Iraq after more than a decade of UN sanctions and with no WMD:s.

Re:How far is too far?

[Haffner]

I think the big difference here is that the financial crimes that were committed stemmed from behavior that was initially within the law before greed took over. On the other hand, hacking another country's government has never been within the law.

Re:How far is too far?

[david.given]

This could easily be a buildup for a larger attack, yet no one has done anything substantial yet.

Some actual hard evidence that China is involved in any any meaningful way would be nice.

From the article:

They caution, however, that there is no way of knowing whether the hackers are Chinese, or some other nationality routing their cybercrimes through China to cover their tracks.

Re:How far is too far?

[R2.0]

The problem is that the Chinese government isn't doing it - they are simply giving others license to do it, with assurances of government protection and payment.

Sound familiar? It is - it's called privateering. It used to be done with ships on the sea; now it's done with computers on the internet. While China may not be at war with us, their use of privateers is proof that they do NOT mean us well.

So how do we combat it? Article I, Section 8, paragraph 11 of the U.S. Constitution authorizes Congress to "grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water." Imagine if the US Congress granted Google the authority to go after China - can you imagine how much havoc that would wreak if Google employees focused 20% of their time on fucking with China?

Re:How far is too far?

[Trails]

Rape is not driven by lust. It's an act of subjugation. Rape is not sexy, it's horrible, that's the point.

Re:How far is too far?

[tomthepom]

Believe me I understand this, but I think you missed my point - and where on earth did you read in my post that rape was sexy??
Maybe I should have added a 'sarcasm' tag.

Re:How far is too far?

[digitalPhant0m]

When will the US (or the international community) hold China accountable and force them to stop these actions?

As soon as it is no longer profitable to allow such behavior.

Re:How far is too far?

[marcosdumay]

The US (or the international community*) will hold China accountable the day they are willing to start World War III. I guess China can do much worse things than some spying around before people let the nukes fly around.

By the way, the US can always deal with hina by economical means, but that won't stop the spying.

* WTF is that anyway?

Re:How far is too far?

[twebb72]

By the way, the US can always deal with China by economical means

You've got that the other way around. We are indebted to China.

Re:How far is too far?

[marcosdumay]

And so? You can choose to pay, or not to pay that debt any time you want. Both will have consequences, some that you'll like, others that you won't like. You can also stop importing from them, control outsourcing, or stop any other kind of deal you think you should.

It is quite interesting if you think what would happen if you pushed a Russia and stopped exporting to China. I've never undertood mercantilism anyway.

Executive spear-phising

[c0lo]

TFA

How it was done
In the world of cybercops, it is called "executive spear-phishing."

This is what you get if the executives you have are fishes, no matter (or even easier) if they look/behave like sharks.

Re:Executive spear-phising

[antifoidulus]

Q: How can you tell the difference between a spear phisher and an actual sys admin?
A: The spear phisher is polite.

Re:Why even connect sensitive computers to the net

[somersault]

Define "sensitive". You have sensitive information on your own computer, yet you expose it to the internet too. At some point it will come down to convenience and efficiency. For some things, there's no way around it, unless you want to have every single conversation and do every single transaction in person.

Re:Why even connect sensitive computers to the net

[KClaisse]

I'll use whatever the government defines as sensitive.

Oh no!

[EnsilZah]

The Chinese may have acquired... *dramatic pause* stealth mÃÃse technology!

Re:Oh no!

[EnsilZah]

Hmm, that'll teach me to preview before using non-ASCII characters.

The word was 'moose' in case anyone is wondering, and apparently the technology is already in use.

Re:Oh no!

[qmaqdk]

Maybe we should...

*puts on sunglasses*

...start hunting.

YYYYYEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Re:Oh no!

[dotancohen]

Hmm, that'll teach me to preview before using non-ASCII characters.

The word was 'moose' in case anyone is wondering, and apparently the technology is already in use.

A m00se once bit my sister.

Re:Why even connect sensitive computers to the net

[somersault]

That would probably be everything they do, including all email, which by necessity has to travel via the internet. There will of course be different levels of classification, and hopefully they'd encrypt the "more sensitive" stuff.. but really, even if there are good security policies in place, quite frankly a lot of people are idiots when it comes to using computers, and will make mistakes anyway. Mistakes like running a trojan, which makes a lot of security measures useless, if for example the trojan did keylogging, screengrabbing, etc..

Re:While you're getting hacked I'm getting

[lul_wat]

What're you gonna loosen it with?

Canada?

[Charliemopps]

What did the steal? Their recipe for maple syrup?

Re:Canada?

[Laxitive]

God no. We keep that shit in a bunker underneath the Canadian shield, disconnected from the internet. You don't leave national secrets like that just lying around.

On a serious note, China's main interest is in Canada's natural resources. As they grow and industrialize, their need to import massive amounts of raw resources to fuel their economy and people.

For example, Saskatchewan has basically the largest natural deposits of Potash in the world. The whole province is basically potash.. dig anywhere.. and you'll hit potash. Potash is what they make fertilizer out of. Not too long ago, a chinese firm wanted to acquire Potash Corp., Saskatchewan's potash producer. There was a big ruckus raised about it internally, and eventually the sale was stopped by the federal government after the extremely popular provincial minister went on the warpath about Saskatchewan natural resources being sold to foreign interests.

I don't disagree with that move (It'd be idiotic to sell off the rights to your own land's bounty).. but China really doesn't like not being able to get what they want. While it's not proven that it was the Chinese government behind these attacks, my suspicion is that they are (occam's razor). There's a well known effort by China to influence the Canadian government and people, and it's been brought up in the national media not too long ago.

-Laxitive

Re:Canada?

[Laxitive]

You are right. I didn't have my facts straight... thanks for the correction. So yeah, BHP was bidding, as was a Chinese company. The BHP bid was scuttled, and it seems Chinese offer went down with it. As for why the execs liked the deal, it's because they would have been greatly enriched by the sale.

Quoth the CBC, in an editorial (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/10/01/f-vp-newman.html):

The executives at Potash Corp., who will benefit from a huge payout if the company is sold, are reportedly trying to organize a rival bid involving a Chinese government-owned company to drive up the sale price.

But ultimate ownership by a company from China, which is one of the biggest buyers of Saskatchewan potash, would have even greater implications for the value of the product than a sale to BHP Billiton.

So, regardless of who makes the stronger bid, the answer from both Ottawa and Saskatchewan should be the same: "Sorry. No sale."

Re:Canada?

[RivenAleem]

And a great way to drum up some anti-selling-our-land-to-foreigners sentiments would be to let it be known that they are spying on your government.

Re:Canada?

[Laxitive]

An AC pointed this out in a reply to my post correcting some factual errors in my post. It was an australian company (BHP) doing the bidding, and that was scuttled. The executives, however, were not happy with the BHP bid (which was hostile), and were trying to arrange a more lucrative deal with a Chinese company.

The federal action scuttled both potential deals. Anyway, the point is that China buys a LOT of potash from Canada, and has strategic interests in that resource.

-Laxitive

Re:Canada?

[WindBourne]

Yeah, I have to say, that I have little issue with another western nation owning such resources (though I would prefer it remain local if it was in my area), HOWEVER, when you have a nation that ignores all of their treaties and is waging the equivalence of NATIONAL economic war, then it makes ZERO sense to allow them to own that.

Re:Canada?

[twebb72]

What did the steal? Their recipe for maple syrup?

*Strong Pakistani Accent* Its funny because there is noooo recipe.. ahhhhh.

Well, in America...

[Grapplebeam]

My tip for her would be to sensationalize this until people start paying attention. But I've never watched Canadian news, so I don't know if they're the same level of hyperbole (100%, plus or minus nothing at all, because it's 100% hyperbole).

Re:Well, in America...

[Stormthirst]

I'm from the UK, but now living in Canada - so I've been brought up on the BBC News. I don't have time to watch much news, but I do get CTV here with my cable package and tend to watch it in the morning over breakfast. I have chosen to watch half an episode of Glen Beck (I got bored quarter of the way through and couldn't stomach the rest), but I do watch the Daily Show regularly.

I can say that hyperbole is an American form of reporting.

And you can keep it as far as I'm concerned!

Re:Well, in America...

[Antisyzygy]

Thats just Fox News for you. I am not sure why its so full of bat-shit crazy people. Between that blubbering twat Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck, its a regular loonie bin.

Re:What? Why!!

[Keen Anthony]

"Public sentiment towards China is getting very, very testy" That sounds racist and jingoistic to you? You're kidding right? I mean, "China replacing all Canadian government documents with takeout menues" would at least sound somewhat racist. The Chinese hackers leaving a calling card in the form of an animated takeout box would too. And jingoistic, well "Oh, Canada uber alles, eh!" would sound jingoistic. Canadians marching in the street screaming, "Take off you pandas!" would be both racist and jingoistic.

This is probably a true story though. Chinese hackers have been very aggressive in the last couple of years. One suggestion I've heard was that China wants to test its limits, find vulnerable infrastructure, and so on.

Re:The REAL story

[DarwinSurvivor]

This attack could have been EASILY avoided using 1 simple system: PGP digital signing. Give every government address a PGP key and set up a government public key repository. Any company doing work with the government has no excuse for not being able to do the same.

You then set up the email servers to block any email with attachments that isn't signed by a trusted key.

PGP signing (and even encryption in most cases) is so pathetically easy to set up, the fact that governments don't MANDATE it for internal use (and even external use for anything other than simple civilian inquiries) is absolutely unforgivable.

Re:Why even connect sensitive computers to the net

[AHuxley]

It just doesn't make sense to me...
They like to look up Ford car parts, bathroom repair, fantasy football and correct wikipedia ect ... all from their day jobs ip

Re:Why even connect sensitive computers to the net

[merlock18]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIPRNet I dont know about Canada but the US has theyre own worlwide network, completely separate from the WWW.

Re:What? Why!!

[Mashiki]

Well the first part is by and far true. We don't make enemies, hell we're the first ones the world runs to when they want mediators. Probably that whole, slow to anger, stubborn, type of thing. However, unlike in the US where shit hit the fan several times, over several things. And Americans went WTF, HOLY SHIT, CHINA...what the hell are you doing?

Canadians went...eh...okay. Dead? Nope. Carry on, government to do a better job. People as a whole here don't get angry quickly, over anything. And it takes a lot to push the general public over the edge on something. Either it has to have dire ramifications and is so fucked up for everyone(UBB is a fine example), or a lot of people have to die because of government stupidity(air india). People are getting pissed off at China here, it's taken a lot of really hard work to get people here angry. And that's saying something.

Re:What? Why!!

[merlock18]

They didnt say "public sentiments towards the Chinese." Its China, not hte Chinese. The government, not the people. You wouldnt be offended if your werent shortsighted.
There is a reason the people of China have to work their asses off just to get some decent internet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Shield_Project
Why has stating facts, that mention a race, become racist lately? It getting ridiculous. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong

So some data was stolen

[h00manist]

It's not like data leaks/traffic/theft/espionage was invented the other day and doesn't happen all the time. All the ad-tracking businesses, credit bureau, embassies, corporations, are full of undercover info smuggling all the time. You just dont *see* it very often. If they steal your data, you steal their data. It's not even violent. Heck, if you weren't so busy with those tons of skeletons in your closet, you might even think it was fun.

Re:The REAL story

[c]

> This attack could have been EASILY avoided
> using 1 simple system: PGP digital signing.

The Canadian government is in the process of rolling out a digital signature system... unfortunately, it's Entrust rather than an open solution like PGP, and it looks like it's going to be cumbersome enough that it won't get used in situations it's not absolutely necessary for.

Because it's not based on open standards it can't be used for external communications which makes it rather infeasible to block all unencrypted attachments. Which would be a bad idea, anyways, given the small fraction of "protected" information on unclassified networks (i.e. ones which communicate with the outside world).

Re:What? Why!!

[pokyo]

I agre, that "very very testy" statement is ridiculous. I'm Canadian, and I am not very very testy at all. I also don't judge an entire nation based on the actions of a small group.

Who said China did it?

[biodata]

There seems to be no evidence either way, as all the routing info can be faked. Ask yourself who has most to gain? Who would gain most from the spin that China goes around hacking the Canadians? Who would like all their neighbours to sign up for some online neighborhood watch scheme for government snooping?

No, it isn't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Recently a Chinese national snuck into the country using an elaborate rubber mask. He was arrested and held as a security threat. Then, he was RELEASED, bypassing immigration entirely, and is going to Toronto where he's going to get employment. Public reaction to this nonsense IS getting testy, very testy. Nothing to do with jingoism at all.

For "months ago" read "years ago".

[nedlohs]

Auditor-General Sheila Fraser, for one, first raised the alarm in 2002 when she warned "there are weaknesses in the system.

"There are access controls that need to be fixed; there are a whole series of minimum security issues that are not being dealt with. There are vulnerabilities. Government needs to fix them."

Three years later, Fraser checked again and found not much had changed.

Re:For "months ago" read "years ago".

[JonySuede]

Sheila Fraser should be given the title of Canada's Emperor for life.

Re:For "months ago" read "years ago".

[nedlohs]

Why?

It's a fixed length non-reappointable term, making "for lfe" not an option.

And all bar two (three if you count the one acting holder) of the people who have had that title had it for longer than she has so far.

Re:For "months ago" read "years ago".

[JonySuede]

Why:
She does an exceptionally good job, she seems to know and understand what is happening in every branch of government and here prediction are always on spot. We would be better served by a benevolent dictator like her than our current bunch of buffoons in Parliament.

Re:What? Why!!

[Keen Anthony]

That's possible, but with the number of Windows volume licenses in extraneous use, I'd bet that those machines aren't having such a difficult time being upgraded. It is known that China is aggressive in staging cyber attacks. We might not have absolute proof, and I mean "we" as in /. readers. I bet the U.S. and Canadian governments' own cyber warfare specialists have a fairly good idea of whether they're facing Chinese agents or dealing with zombies computers.

Re:This is a republican distraction technique

[canistel]

Right...... because no other news can possibly occur when the one news item that happens to annoy you is also being talked about.

Re:Ducks in a barrel

[Trails]

We should believe this because the author wrote it in Courier New, making it look more like shell text, and highlighting his overall l33tn3ss.

canadians are prickily nationalistic

[circletimessquare]

they don't flaunt their nationalism, but its there and its quiet and its real

i see something concrete in response coming out of this as more likely than if europeans or americans were attacked

c'mon ottawa, do something. show that at least somebody has a backbone in response to these provocations. london or washington dc wouldn't, and didn't, do anything

Nuke them

[sproketboy]

We should nuke them. Oh wait we don't have any. America, mind if we borrow a few?

is china a school bully or a professional killer?

[it5complicated]

Either China is the next superpower whose superiority is backed by superb cyber offense capability, or one of these days their "victims" are gonna expose their hubris and gonna send them(China) back to IT stone age. Chinese were quick off the blocks as regards information warfare Add to that their military doctrine is about hiding their strength, obscurity et al. So if they are attacking and not bothering to hide, hmmm.. What are they upto?

public sentiment - HA

[RabidMonkey]

> It should also be noted that public sentiment towards China is getting very, very testy.

I'm part of the public, and I know lots of other members of the public - I don't see anyones sentiment anywhere near "testy" about China.

Papers, tv news, radio ... I spend a good amount of time keeping up on them, and I don't think I've heard anything 'testy' about China expressed.

Given that that statement doesn't come from the article, I'm guessing either the submitter or editor added that. Either way, stop making shit up. We have Fox News/the Toronto Sun for that

Highly classified information on the Internet

[doperative]

'An unprecedented cyberattack on the Canadian government from China has given foreign hackers access to highly classified federal information

Find out who put this "highly classified federal information" on the Internet and charge him/her with gross negligence and clap him/her in jail for twenty years. Is sombody looking to bump up their federal budget this year?

Forgive my ignorance, but...

[JustAnotherIdiot]

...what kind of classified information does Canada have worth stealing? I could understand the US, which has its grubby little fingers in everything behind locked doors, but Canada?

Re:is china a school bully or a professional kille

[rerogo]

Probably they tried to hide it. It looks like this breach took a month to expose? You can't backdoor a system without having a backdoor, and with sufficient scrutiny that's going to show up.

Awwwww, Not Canada...

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Seriously China? Canada? What the hell did Canada ever do to you? What valuable information could they possibly have that you couldn't get by your regular, scheduled attacks on U.S. networks? Canada is like the cool, friendly kid in class, that everyone likes, and isn't a douchebag to anyone. Picking on them is like taking a piss on a puppy. You've just demonstrated yourselves to be a bunch of wankers, China.

Re:Awwwww, Not Canada...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously? Canada is a trusted partner with a lot of other nations, and traditionally has crap security -- an easy way to get info on the other nations is to hack the weak link. This was a constant problem during the cold war.

Also it's informative to see what other nations tell "trusted" partners like Canada, compared to the data you're gleaning more directly. Any auditor will tell you that you need to audit both sides of a transaction to figure out what's going on.

Otherwise, Canada is far from insignificant economically, and as far as China is concerned, they're just more of the "West" -- the culture that butt-fucked them mercilessly. And that's ignoring details like Canada supplying the aircraft and expertise the nationalists used to strafe the People's Army.

And if you want to talk about pissing on puppies, take a look at what they're doing to the relatively harmless Tibetans, or millions of fellow Chinese, especially if they're not Han. You really think for a second that Beijing would take a moment to /feel bad/ about hacking rich, stupid Canada? /That/ would be wanking. No, China is a big boy now and its intent on fucking rather than being fucked for a change.

Re:'Apparently' China...

[cf18]

The anti-chinese xenophobia on this site has been obvious for years, but it just follow general western media trend.
Take a look at this 'minor' item from wikileak that only got half a page of text:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20027157-503543.html
If the spy ranking is changed, do you think it will not show up in front pages on all media?

China is so Bad

[mezgani]

I don't believe that China spy can attack into Canadian network, even i remark that all last governments attacks (French, NASA, ...) come from China, is really china so good in Hacking. I thought often that China network is used as transparent proxy to others gov.

Re:China is so Bad

[ADRA]

Your comments may be poorly worded, but basically correct. Anyone with half a clue about network security knows that a single compromised server from a random government office etc.. can be used to stage any type of attack upon a given government. For all we know, the NSA are the perpetrators of the attacks in order to justify ever higher budgets.

These stories are truly reprehensible in their blatantly racist nature. Shame on you all.

Re:China is so Bad

[mezgani]

Your answer sound correct, it is true that is not the first time that i heard stories about China attacks, nor the first attacks. With more clarification, government will know that China is not the first factor of these kind of attacks, only a hijacked Axe to others. Well, in your vision NSA security believe in old stories, attack/defense to stay at top.

Likely not government involved....

[DarthVain]

If you look at the two departments within the Canadian Government that were specifically targeted they were the Treasury and Fiance.

How much do you want to bet that this has absolutely nothing to do with the Chinese government and more to do with your typical criminals phishing for finical information that they can use to score some dough. They deal with large sums of money, and have been criticized in the past for lax network security. Much harder to hit a commercial bank. That said I doubt the Chinese government has much desire to do anything about this sort of activity within its boarders.

I would argue and hope that Canada would be exerting pressure via China's desire for Canadian resources, particularly oil, to put a very abrupt stop to this sort of activity directed towards us. I would also hope that this is a wake up call for government to start paying serious attention to IT security.

Re:Why even connect sensitive computers to the net

[tabrnaker]

Let me explain. It's the Canadian Government.

Maybe i should elaborate, i used to work for the Canadian Government. The salaries that they offer computer programmers is about the same salary they offer to somebody whose job is to get and put away paper files. So about 2 times less than a code monkey would get in the private sector, and about 4-5 times less than a good programmer would receive. Seriously.

So what happens is most of the programmers and most of the programs get written in VB, yes pathetic i know. Security is virtually non-existant. I actually got let go the first time (got fired 3 times and quit once, gotta love their stupidity) because i was seen as a security threat because i knew more about the computers there than the fresh out of school computer grads. Not your normal grads, but the ones who got the degree because they thought that's where the money is and don't even own computers at home. Yes, tech admins who can't even assemble their own computers.

Re:The REAL story

[tabrnaker]

I used to work for the canadian gov't. This would never fly because most of the admins can't wrap their head around something like PGP let alone the non-techs.

Non-techs can't even seem to follow the rule of locking their computers when not at their desks. They tried to be more secure by adding short expirations for passwords without the ability to recycle passwords and passwords having to be different for each system. So what happens? A plethora of yellow stickies on monitors with everybodies latest passwords.

Hell, when i was there the tech people couldn't even understand what a video card with digital output was, 'it's a computer so it's all digital right?'.

Besides, this is nothing special, this happened more than once every notable holiday where people send those stupid digital cards which have always been expressly forbidden. My guess is that the big story is 'China bad man!', and probably only because they've finally learned how to trace attacks one hop backwards.

It's all propaganda against China, because of course all these chinese hackers breaking into govts everywhere are too stupid to use a proxy. Geeks shouldn't fall for this type of propaganda, but the majority will. The question is, why all the propaganda against China? My slightly conspiratorial view is that it will make it so much easier for the states to default on everything it owes China, but i guess we'll see in a few years.

Re:The REAL story

[tabrnaker]

Ah, gotta love the stupidy of the canadian government. I remember when we bought some stupid search engine technology from the US gov't (that should have been a clue). Problem with the search engine, doesn't actually search documents, only meta-data. Problem with that, virtually no documents had meta-data. Absolutely useless for any of us who worked there, so everybody had their own link farms.

Re:I'm not afraid to open my email ...

[tabrnaker]

Security by Obscurity was there motto. The first time i got fired by them was because i pointed out holes in their security which they didn't want to address because it costs money to do that. Of course they had to rehire me once i went to the ombudsman and the union. I gave up trying to improve their computer security after they fired/rehired me for the third time.

Not a surprise

[makubesu]

Cyber mounties are a joke.

Re:This is a republican distraction technique

[tabrnaker]

Someone mod parent up. There has always been some big hoopla story after any news of how the conservatives are raping and pillaging canada.

I actually got so disappointed by my fellow canadians allowing such bullshit to go on that i left the country.

Canadians may have a lot of heart and lay down their lives to protect freedom in every war out there (almost, so damn proud of Chretien basically telling Bush to shove his "you're either with us or against us" where the sun don't shine over Iraq), but they're also extremely naive and stupid when someone tells them to bend over you're going to enjoy this (basically all natural resource exports to the US)

Re:What? Why!!

[Keen Anthony]

Fine, anonymous coward, have it your way... It is impossible that China could be responsible for the cyber attacks against Canada. The peace-loving citizens of the great People's Republic of China could never do such a thing to our dear friends in the West with whom we enjoy a strong bond of friendship and belief in the one country-two policy system. If Chinese were responsible, they must surely have been corrupted by the decadent ways of the enemies of our peaceful nation in the West. There, better?

Because, obviously it cannot for a moment be likely that China could have done this, because FTA says we cannot know for sure, and because TFA says it, surely we must throw out past history. It must be 4chan.

When will we learn?

[WindBourne]

Chinese Gov. is in a cold war with the west. Right now, it is about getting as much information AND tech as possible. It is time to move western nation govs on to a seperate network, and then create another network or two within EACH nation in which vital resources (power plants, trains, planes, etc) are on that. It is not enough to be a VPN. It must be a PHYSICALLY seperated network. Ideally, we will go back to building our own switches/routers for at least this area.

Re:What? Why!!

[Ogive17]

Breaking News - NHL and OHL have suspended operations. It has not been determined if hockey will ever return.

How do they know if it's a foreigner or a local??

[angiasaa]

So basically, the Canadians have lost all access to their 'highly classified information' while foreigners can access it leisurely? What about foreigners in Canada? And Canadians who're abroad? Or are we to assume that the databases somehow knows whether there's a foreigner sitting at the computer or a Canadian?

Too many questions? :P

Puts WikiLeaks in context...

[Kazoo the Clown]

If the enemies of a country have their secrets, can you still claim that their own people have no right to them?

Re:What? Why!!

[Mashiki]

NHL/OHL did that no one would bat an eye, we'd all just go watch more minor/junior/senior league games like we do now.

Re:What? Why!!

[Ogive17]

I was going to list all the leagues but was too lazy... but I think Canadians would riot if hockey went away.

Stolen?

[Rinikusu]

I find it amusing that if this were an "entertainment" type story, you'd have the usual suspects doing the "it's not stealing!" semantics dance. "Unauthorized copying != theft!" After all, the canadians still have their documents, right?

appreciate Chinese l33t, don't spin anti-CN msgs

[keneng]

I can understand Slashdot mentioning this hack attack on Canadian Government.
Mentioning it pays respect and shows appreciation for the Chinese l33t hacker skills required to pull something like this off.

But having others in this troll bad mouthing Chinese people and spreading "anti-CN spin" is not appropriate.
Try living in China as a programmer with all their culture and their social status situation for a year. From what I understand, the average monthly salary for a java programmer ranges from 2000RMB to 4000RMB. Now roughly divide that by 6 to see that in US or Canadian dollars(they are almost at par these days).
333.33$ to 666.67$ A MONTH. So as a moonlighting job or a day job, if someone offered you some bonus money for doing something "cool" for individual profit-motivated reasons and not nationalistic reasons, there is a definite temptation if you want to be able to afford a house(>300,000RMB) or a car(>150,000RMB) especially when you are a single programmer still living at home with your family because that is the tradition unless you are migrant worker coming in from extreme poverty which fires up the temptation these kinds of jobs even more.

I'm not justifying the hacking, but I can certainly appreciate the Chinese l33t's level of desperation to raise their social status and to raise they quality of life.

Essentially, like all other humans on this planet, they just want a job that provides them with dignity and with an acceptable level social status.

This is a tangent but it is related because of human dignity and acceptable level social status in Canada: Here in Canada we have unemployment insurance and social welfare, but many people would agree that it fails to provide citizens with dignity and certainly fails to provide citizens with an acceptable level of social status. Do you think people on welfare feel good about it? No, they would rather be given a real job opportunity that is good fit for them. The government's current action plan fails because the gov. treats people like numbers and sends them off generic template responses with no human feelings or empathy involved. The accountability isn't there either because the emails come from a generic "GOV CANADA" email and not from "Mrs. Smith from Action Plan Canada Downtown Toronto Office, with phone number 123.234.1234" to reach a real human to resolve an individual's job crisis at-hand. I find all of this Action Plan stuff false advertising and I would like my money back because it is tax payer money and I don't think I'm getting bang for my buck for UI/WELFARE/ACTION PLAN to be honest. As a result I would predict more of these events will occur not only from China but from within Canada as well.

Re:is china a school bully or a professional kille

[it5complicated]

Hurmm. But the Chinese would know that, wouldn't they? But then if you are gonna do something like this, there is risk involved. A school bully is rash, while a pro takes calculated risks. So which is China?

It's time to return the favor...

[joerog]

Paybacks will be sweet..... Don't just sit there! Hack 'em back! Get the best minds (if you still have them) together and devise a wake up call to the Chinese government. That's the only language they understand and it doesn't need any translation!