Slashdot Mirror


China Has Abandoned a Cybersecurity Truce With the US, Report Says (bloomberg.com)

Cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike says China has largely abandoned a hacking truce negotiated by Barack Obama as President Trump embarked on a trade war with Beijing last year. "A slowdown in Chinese hacking following the cybersecurity agreement Obama's administration secured in 2015 appears to have been reversed, the firm said in a report released Tuesday that reviewed cyber activity by U.S. adversaries in 2018," reports Bloomberg. From the report: The report comes as the Trump administration seeks to reach a trade deal with China, including provisions on intellectual property theft, ahead of a March 1 deadline. Trump has said he may extend that deadline and hold off on increasing tariffs on Chinese imports if there's progress in the talks. China's hacking targets in 2018 included telecommunications systems in the U.S. and Asia, according to Crowdstrike. Groups linked to Iran and Russia also appeared to target telecommunications, a sector that yields "the most bang for your buck" for hackers due to the large number of users that can be accessed after breaching a single network, Meyers said.

The findings align with concern in the U.S. about telecommunications security as the country transitions to the next generation of mobile networks and the Trump administration seeks to secure so-called 5G technology from foreign intelligence gathering. The administration has expressed particular concern about the spread of products made by the Chinese firm Huawei Technologies Co.
The report also mentions the increased cyber activity in other parts of the world. "Iran focused much of its cyber activity on Middle Eastern and North African countries while Russia engaged in intelligence collection and information operations worldwide," the report says. "North Korea deployed hackers for financial gain and intelligence collection, while China targeted sectors including technology, manufacturing and hospitality."

3 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. Re:As decided by random security firm? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The standard is determined by people who set policy. The report documents the frequency of known attacks, which is increasing. Crowdstrike is hardly random, they've done this for a while. Why phrase things dishonestly?

  2. old fashioned fear mongering by SirAstral · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Be nice to us economically or face random hacks... we will also tell your citizens that you would not be nice to us and "negotiate" so they will get mad at you about it too.

    China is terrible country that is far worse than America. I don't have a problem with cutting ties with that disgusting nation until they stop abusing their citizens. It like someone coming to your door and saying... I want you to sell me your house for 20% off or I am going to harass your neighborhood and watching your fellow neighbor getting pissed off at your for refusing to let bad people get their way!

    Sadly, it works too! Just look at this article!

  3. Re:TLDR by terrycarlino · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, because China wouldn't have dared to lie to Barack.

    Please. China has been engaged in cyberwarfare since the invention of the computer network. They're not stepping it up. They're getting caught more, and western countries are starting to replace "unknown foreign actor" with "Chinese" in reports, rather than continuing to give them cover.

    They steal our intellectual property, manipulate currency, and likely install backdoors in networks, chips and other devices manufactured for export. And like Lenin said many U.S. corporations are not only glad to sell them the rope with which to hang us, they'll actually pay them to put the rope around our necks.