Chinese Hackers Mess With Texas By Attacking Fracking Firms

chicksdaddy writes The technology revolution that is "fracking" has created billions in wealth for states like Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio and Wyoming. But all that oil and all those dollars have attracted the attention of sophisticated spies from near and far to steal valuable trade secrets. Digital Guardian's blog notes this report from News 4 San Antonio in Texas which quotes local FBI officials saying they are "very concerned" about theft of trade secrets from companies engaged in "fracking" in the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas. "It's corporate espionage, there's no question about it," said Christopher Combs of the San Antonio FBI. "Foreign governments or foreign companies are looking for any competitive advantage. Whether it's the widget that you use to drill, or it's a process that you use to track inventory better. They're really looking at the company as a whole to find out every little thing that you do that makes you a better company on the world market." Combs declined to name specific firms, but said that Chinese firms are "aggressively" engaged in industrial espionage. However, the problem isn't limited to China. Companies with ties to governments that are U.S. allies are believed to be conducting espionage against innovative US firms as well.

Comments

The reverse is also true.

[AltGrendel]

From the standpoint of trying to steal business secrets, that's something that everyone does on everyone else, even the US. You'd think by now most businesses would understand that connecting everything to the internet isn't necessarily a good idea.

Re:The reverse is also true.

[jon3k]

The difference is it's state sponsored. The US Government doesn't use our tax money to hack into Chinese businesses and then give all the trade secrets to Microsoft or General Electric or whatever.

Re:The reverse is also true.

[timeOday]

You would have to make the the case that disconnecting a sprawling oil enterprise from the Internet would be worth the cost in efficiency.

It's not as if the Internet is the only vector by which information spreads. New products themselves represent new techniques, people move from company to company, companies hire each others' services and work together, etc. Yes, I'm sure there's some value in hacking or nobody would do it. But it only speeds up the process by some factor.

Re:The reverse is also true.

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Government doesn't use our tax money to hack into Chinese businesses and then give all the trade secrets to Microsoft or General Electric or whatever.

Have you lived in a closet the last decade? That is pretty much exactly what both CIA and NSA does. You know that they are tax funded right?

Seems fair

[Charliemopps]

This seems fair to me...
http://www.pcworld.com/article...
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/n...

what's good for the goose is good for the gander

billions for who?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in PA. We have not gotten "billions" from fracking firms, since we have no gas extraction tax. Most of the rig workers are from out of state. They spend a fair amount fixing roads -- but that is because their trucks tore them up. Please stop repeating that natural gas production benefits the common citizen. It benefits shareholders. Our gas bill isn't even that cheap, since the gas is shipped to nyc/boston.

Re:billions for who?

[asylumx]

Everywhere I've ever lived, you pay income tax where you work, then pay more where you live, if tax rates are higher where you live.

No, this is not the case everywhere. For example when I lived in Indiana and worked in Michigan, my state income tax was paid to Indiana. Anecdotes don't work when talking about state taxes because there is too much variance.

Who will get the cocktail first?

[damn_registrars]

Groups have been pressuring the oil/gas companies to give information on the composition of the magic "fracking solution" for years now. All the companies have been willing to say so far is "it's safe, trust us!". If the courts can't get the companies to tell us why we should trust them on the safety of this cocktail, perhaps the hackers will find out its composition and tell us first?

One might wonder how an oil/gas company would look in terms of safety if they were ousted by a Chinese group...

Re:Don't what with the who?

[turkeydance]

that's flacking to you.

Alternately ...

[gstoddart]

Maybe this isn't corporate espionage.

Maybe it's someone trying to see what is really in fracking liquids -- which they keep telling us are safe, but won't tell us what's in them.

They also tell us that fracking doesn't lead to groundwater pollution, but few people really actually believe them.

Frack u later.

Frack! Propaganda, anyone?

[marienf]

> The technology revolution that is "fracking" has created billions in
> wealth for states like Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio and Wyoming.

This smells (PI) like corporate propaganda to me.

> Chinese firms are "aggressively" engaged in industrial espionage
> conducting espionage against innovative US firms

riiight.. McCarthy, anyone? And.. innovative?? Innovation? Involving fossil fuels? The only trade secrets they are likely protecting is the toxicity and environmental impact of fracking. So the next logical step is that the chinese or whoever steal the "secrets", realise how stupid phracking is, then cancel any such plans at home and invest massively in renewables.

So this is great news. The fracking disaster will end with the US.

-f

Shale Oil

[the eric conspiracy]

China has massive shale oil and gas deposits - larger that the US and has a high priority to develop them.

It really should not be too big a surprise that they would make industrial espionage in this area a favorite activity.

Re:Good

[Jason Levine]

While I wouldn't celebrate a hacking that caused safety mechanisms to fail causing a massive spill, I'd question why such safety systems were on the Internet. If such systems needed to be network enabled (e.g. allow remote monitoring), then I'd question whether the security procedures were up to par and why an intruder would be able to cause such havoc.

Of course, as other posters have said, this is industrial espionage, not attempts to damage the operations. Their ideal would be to get into the system and not have anybody know for as long as possible. Causing a huge spill by tampering with safety mechanisms would be the exact opposite of what they want to do.