Slashdot Mirror
The Undeclared "Cyber Cold War" With China
First time accepted submitter lacaprup writes "Chinese-based hacking of 760 different corporations reflects a growing, undeclared cyber war. From giants like Intel and Google to unknowns like iBahn, the Chinese hackers are accused of stealing everything isn't nailed down. Simply put, it is easier and cheaper to steal rather than develop the legal way. China has consistently denied it has any responsibility for hacking that originated from servers on its soil, but — based on what is known of attacks from China, Russia and other countries — a declassified estimate of the value of the blueprints, chemical formulas and other material stolen from U.S. corporate computers in the last year reached almost $500 billion"
Yep pretty sure us Yankees invented the concept, along w the personal computer and the internet, shame some of us are getting schooled on it, a glimpse into American decay? Or the start of a security renaissance?
I'm sure the Chinese government has their crack team of hackers, just like we do. Having said that...
I run a honeypot at work. 70% of the attacks do come from Chinese machines, but I suspect that's because the Chinese buy those $2 pre-hacked warez'd Windows CD's at the market and don't install security updates.
Of the actual living, breathing hackers that log into my honeypot, 1/3 of them come from Romanian IP's, and another 1/3 come from other eastern European countries, but the text files/strings in their utilities are Romanian. Wired has a good article which partly corroborates this.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/01/ff_hackerville_romania/all/1
I see two modes of attack. 98% are single machines launching 100's of attacks. 70% of those are in China. The other 2% are distributed attacks. These are more likely to be major power intelligence agencies, and don't have anywhere near the geographic concentration as the single-machine attacks (Chinese IP's are 15% of distributed attacks, same as Brazil).
Every black hat is probably running their operations through proxies in China these days so that the Western companies they break into will just say "damn dirty Chinese!" and never suspect someone in Europe or maybe just a few blocks away. China is a jurisdictional black hole.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This is probably going to sound racist, when I don't really intend it to. It's more "culturist" than anything else.
I work for a post-secondary institution with a large international student program. Most of our international students come from China, and when we break down the stats, the Chinese students are the most likely students to plagiarize others work, both in our online learning management system and in our face to face classroom environments.
What's more, they make no effort to hide their "enhanced group work" skills from their instructors. We've asked several of the students about this behaviour and have been told "that's how things work in China. It's commonplace there."
So it doesn't surprise me that Chinese hackers are trying to steal information from western companies.
1,2,3,4, I declare a cold war!
"it is easier and cheaper to steal rather than develop the legal way."
this sentiment is emanating from a nation that has no credibility on 'the legal way' to develop anything in the 21st century. A nation comprised of just a few megacorporations that hover over an infinite sea of frivolous patents, casting them forth like pokemon at the slightest sight of national or international competition that cannot be bought, licensed, bribed, or outlawed by their pre-pay capitalist representatives in government.
information assets amount to the brainfarts of talented engineers and scientists who are in many cases ostracized entirely from the most meaningful components of their work such as the revenue stream and general application.
yeah, its an ideological battle that americans immediately jump around and compare to the cold war, but its the ideology of
ideas come from people, and they must be nurtured and encouraged for the good of all humankind
versus
ideas come from people, and they must be incarcerated, exploited, litigated and profiteered until a group of old white men get another yacht.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Won't ever happen. If we tried that, Britain would come tapping us on the shoulder, and presenting a bill for all the trade secrets we lifted during the Industrial Revolution from them.
What China is doing to us is the same thing we've been done to other nations, albeit when this country was younger.
I am John Hurt.
China is the Han race.
The Han shot first!
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC