State actor seen behind "enormous" wave of cyber attacks

State actor seen behind "enormous" wave of cyber attacks

www.reuters.com

Security experts have discovered the biggest series of cyber attacks to date, involving the infiltration of the networks of 72 organizations including the United Nations, governments and companies around the world.

Security company McAfee, which uncovered the intrusions, said it believed there was one "state actor" behind the attacks but declined to name it, though one security expert who has been briefed on the hacking said the evidence points to China.

The long list of victims in the five-year campaign include the governments of the United States, Taiwan, India, South Korea, Vietnam

(visit the link for the full news article)

The figurative finger is getting firmly pointed a China for these attacks. How are we supposed to respond in a virtual war? Does this long series of attack dating back to 2006 come out now just to be used to further the internet security agenda? Seems a fairly cheap, effective and low-risk method for espionage. I wonder if you could learn as much about them from the data they were interested in as they can about you by stealing it?

www.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by iforget


Great find SnF for you mate. Lets all just hope and pray Kurt Russell isn't too old to come back and save us from our post-internet apocalyptic world.

Hmm. It is possible. perhaps that is why the US made that statement not long ago that any cyber attacks could be considered an act of war... Perhaps they suspected China was behind it?

Also keep in mind that currently there are talks being held in closed-door cyber warfare committees as to what actions constitute a legitimate act of war.

Are we trying to bait China into a cyber "Pearl Harbor"? Or is this meant to scare the populace into giving the goverment control of the Internet for 'security'?

Scary times.

It's just my opinion so take it for nothing more, but I doubt the majority of these have anything to do with the Chinese Government or the PLA. China has fostered an environment of total freedom and lack of consequence for anything done on the Internet (outside China, of course...don't say Boo on an INTERNAL website). Now imagine if the United States suddenly dropped every cyber law it had and hackers were officially declared the lowest enforcement priority in the country or some such nonsense. The attacks would start immediately and it'd be madness 24/7 while the hackers played in the new Disneyland.

I think China is deliberately avoiding any meaningful regulation or enforcement to anything involving the net outside China so their few REAL efforts coming from the PLA/Government are just specks of sand on a beach of hacking and attacks. Clever when you think about it....and if I'm right about it being very loosely directed, if at all, then it's almost impossible to stop unless China does it from the inside. How does anyone track down tens of thousands..or hundreds of thousands of private Chinese citizens on Chinese soil when China itself doesn't care...or quietly encourages it?

So if you want to hack anywhere outside of China w/out consequences..Go to China...Is this what your saying?

Same topic here, started before this one, although the titles are diffferent.

same topic in Breaking News

Reply to post by iforget

Mcaffee. Yeeah..


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Originally posted by iforget


The figurative finger is getting firmly pointed a China for these attacks. How are we supposed to respond in a virtual war? Does this long series of attack dating back to 2006 come out now just to be used to further the internet security agenda? Seems a fairly cheap, effective and low-risk method for espionage. I wonder if you could learn as much about them from the data they were interested in as they can about you by stealing it?

www.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I personal feel America should just go hack China right back as much as possible. Eye for an eye sounds reasonable. Much better than pointless bloodshed or elevated emotions and tensions over something so miniscule. I also feel America needs to step up and provide more efficient security to their sensitive data.

Originally posted by iforget


The figurative finger is getting firmly pointed a China for these attacks.

I thought Wikileaks proved that it was the US who was actively spying on other diplomats in the UN? Why is China the automatic suspect?

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi

Originally posted by iforget


The figurative finger is getting firmly pointed a China for these attacks.

Why is China the automatic suspect?

the evidence points to China

They didn't pick names out of a hat, they looked at the evidence.

reply to post by TinfoilTP


""Everything points to China. It could be the Russians, but there is more that points to China than Russia," Lewis said."

These are the words that the expert in the article states. He even admits that there is no definitive proof. In fact, article also states that the suspect is China because some of the attacks would produce results in Beijing's favor.

I see a serious fault in this whole conclusion. Who says all of these incidents are related? Who says it can't be China, Russia, US, North Korea, Iran, Israel, or any other cyberized military?

The article doesn't provide evidence, just speculation. In terms of evidence, there is proof that the US spies on others at the UN. US also has Cyber Command. Coincidence?

I'm pretty sure that one of these mentioned hackings was back when the Canadian federal budget plan was compromised. The immediate blame was on China, but I think there's more interested "national actors" out there (like our biggest trading partner: the US).

reply to post by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi


In the Anonymous threads everyone was arguing that the US is so disfunctional at cyber war that they could never catch Anonymous, now you are trying to argue that the US is behind the largest cyber caper in the history of the world? Making them super cyber Chuck Norris's? Not only that but they are so nimble at it that they can make it look like China did it?

Liking it both ways is all I see here.

reply to post by ATSforRacialHatred


Wow, someone is overly constipated.

Biggest off topic troll rant of all time.

the report is here:
blogs.mcafee.com...

I had already seen this, and as a "cyber geek" ( I kinda hate the term). This does not surprise me one bit. tho, they don't say "who" and we all assume its china which is a good guess, but until they say we don't know for sure.

part of the problem, is the US and "western" nations are among the first to get really "wired". so, much of the infrastructure in the dot Gov sites, are not great. also, the US gov, has a massive network. many many orgs
its among the most massive networks. there is.

and "securing" it is very hard, and when you add RFP rules and politics it just becomes a mess. there are many "units" or departments that are very good. but as a whole tree, there are to many holes.

and defending something is much harder then attacking something. the attacker, has the advantage. the US, I am sure has a pretty decent "cyber warfare" capacity,and the US as alot of raw talent.

the problem now is focus, and just like it the "cold war", you have to show, that you have yours and will use them. thus, the NSA and CIA hiring at defcon and Blackhat this year....