China May Have Hacked International Hague Tribunal Over South China Sea Dispute (thediplomat.com)

An anonymous reader writes: In July, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague conducted a hearing on the territorial dispute in the South China Sea between the Philippines and China. On the third day of the hearing, the Court's website was suddenly knocked offline. The attack reportedly originated from China and infected the page with malware, leaving anyone interested in the landmark legal case at risk of data theft. "By infecting the computers of journalists, diplomats, lawyers, and others who are involved or interested in the case, Chinese cyber units may be able to find out the names of people who are following the case and anticipate what their response might be if the court rules against China. For example, if Vietnamese or Japanese diplomats visited the website and their computers were infected, China could have access to internal documents and understand that country’s next moves over the disputed islands."

Comments

Re:Ummm... Not Gonna RTFA

[khasim]

Trust me, you're not missing anything from TFA's. Here's one quote:

The Philippines (and its U.S. allies) should accordingly start preparing now for a massive digital tantrum by Chinese patriot hackers if the ruling, expected by the end of the year, goes against the Middle Kingdom.

They blame "China" for the "attack" but then refer to "patriot hackers".

There's a huge difference between a government operation and some kids doing it.

And I have not been able to find any reference to the nature of the "malware" installed. I'm betting it wasn't a 0-day exploit.