US Chamber of Commerce Infiltrated By Chinese Hackers

SpzToid writes "The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that a group of hackers in China breached the computer defenses of the United States Chamber of Commerce. The intrusion was quietly shut down in May 2010, while FBI investigations continue. 'A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Geng Shuang, said cyberattacks are prohibited by Chinese law and China itself is a victim of attacks. ... Still, the Chamber continues to see suspicious activity, they say. A thermostat at a town house the Chamber owns on Capitol Hill at one point was communicating with an Internet address in China, they say, and, in March, a printer used by Chamber executives spontaneously started printing pages with Chinese characters.'" According the article, the group "gained access to everything stored on its systems" and may have "had access to the network for more than a year before the breach was uncovered."

Comments

Tripe

[qualityassurancedept]

This story is ridiculous. It's not like the US Chamber of commerce does anything meaningful at all other than lobby for no taxes. Anyway, does anyone doubt that the NSA and CIA also hack into foreign servers and desktops to steal corporate data? I am sure that back when the Russians were developing MiG fighters the US "hacked" into their computers and stole all the blueprints or if they didn't, they would... and Boeing was/is the beneficiary of that. So honestly gimme a break. Why wouldn't the chinese develop their ability to attack american tech infrastructure? Since the US and China is probably going to go to war over Taiwan within 50 years, and the US will be attacking from the sea with Drones while a million chinese try to literally row their way over from the mainland, I think their best strategy is to learn to disable the American computer systems somehow.

Re:There's a CoC in every town around here....

[bill_mcgonigle]

It's been well known to me, for years, that the local chamber of commerce is comprised of local business owners. I'm honestly not sure how anyone could be confused about the non-governmental status of any level of CoC.

Right - I think the more insidious aspect of the name "US Chamber of Commerce" is that it implies for many a parent organization to the local chambers of commerce.

Which isn't true - they're a nasty lobbying organization that happened to pick a name that borders on fraudulent misappropriation of mark. The local chambers have had to pend the past 5 years or so telling their communities, "no, that's not us."