Chinese Hackers Suspected in Cyber Attack on Council on Foreign Relations

Chinese Hackers Suspected in Cyber Attack on Council on Foreign Relations

freebeacon.com

Computer hackers traced to China carried out an advanced cyberespionage attack against one of America’s most elite foreign policy web groups – the website of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

According to private computer-security forensic specialists, the hacking incident involved a relatively new type of ploy called a “drive-by” website cyber attack that was detected around 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday.

The specialists, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the attack involved penetrating the computer server that operates the New York City-based CFR’s website and then using the pirated computer system to attack CFR members and others who visited or “drove by” the site.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Honestly, I love posting articles like this one. It really goes to highlight that there IS no "power elite" that controls the world.

We all put our pants on the same way and we all get targeted the same.



freebeacon.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I hasten to offer this.....

emphasis mine

The CFR is one of the most elite foreign policy organizations in the United States with a membership of some 4,700 officials, former officials, journalists and others. Its members include NBC anchor Brian Williams, Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie, and former Sen. Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s embattled but as yet un-nominated choice for secretary of defense.

Current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, the Obama administration’s senior Asian affairs policy maker, also are CFR members. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) is also a member, as is Secretary of State-designate Sen. John Kerry.

Its board and members include a who’s who of U.S. foreign policy and national security elites, including former U.S. Central Command commander Army Gen. John Abizaid, and former Secretaries of State Madeleine K. Albright, Colin Powell and Henry Kissinger.

Fox News CEO Roger Ailes also is a member, as is News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are members, as is former CIA Director and former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and former CIA Director David Petraeus.

Nice "club" eh? Now watch the American tax payer pay to have the club secured...... Hillary Clinton refers to the CFR as "the Mothership."

reply to post by Maxmars


Max,

I was waiting for someone to pull that particular paragraph and focus in on it. It stands to reason that many people who are excluded from the "club" will point to those "in the club" and say that they have unfair access. It is the nature of the human condition and has happened since the beginning of time.

ETA - Let's philosophize how effective the CFR would be if it were made up of a bunch of "unknown, regular people." Would there even be such a thing? Or would those "unknown, regular people" be given such scrutiny to make them pseudo-celebrities and you'd end up with....well, what you've got right now?

And who doesn't think that Hillary Clinton is whacked out, anyway? Personally (yes, this is my OPINION), she has the classic traits of a sociopath.

I'd disagree as well regarding the CFR not representing the Elite of the power brokers. Is the CFR the mythical PTB? Nawww.... No more than the Bilderbergs are in my opinion. These are the clubs where membership is mandatory for those who wield power at much higher levels so it's an arm of the beast to be sure.


To be realistic about China, I really don't put much stock in hacking reports out of Mainland China. Especially ones where we hear about it because someone chose to report it and not because the damage was so obvious, it reports itself.

China has a hacker class that makes our early days look downright Romper Room by comparison. It's not that we're dumb or they're smart....it's just that the USG called *ALL* cracking illegal as opposed to China. They seem to figure hacking/cracking is a noble pursuit to learn and master while the world is the Oyster of the generations learning so well.

As long as they don't so much as look sideways at a Chinese computer system, they seem to get all the support of turned heads and ignored actions as any hacker needs to become truly great. I wish I'd lived in THEIR environment about 20 years ago when first I learned some basics. Must be nice to have a license to pillage the world from your own Government. We'd have scores of "Grand Master" hackers ourselves if they'd been able to mature in THAT setting. lol.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Well stated, wrabbit....

To add though, the world of "cyber warfare" is a difficult one to identify clear offenders and their source. There are signifiers that can be used to trace likely origin, but no country will ever go on the record to claim state sponsorship because that could and would be considered an act of aggression/war. So instead, they stand by tongue-in-cheek and say "we don't know who did it....must be some rascally outlaw...."

And this happens EVERYWHERE

reply to post by CIAGypsy

Very true. That's the rub, isn't it? The higher the skill level and professionalism of the hackers, the more obvious it is what TYPE of background they're coming from ...but all the more difficult to get more than that vague notion and impossible to pin down.

It's odd because I've never had sustained assaults on my servers in running web sites.. However, a guy I mod for and do volunteer work with on another site has told me on his end of things, the server security is being hit many times a day, every day non stop. Usually from Chinese and Iranian IP's within the last 18 months or so. His is just a humble community site with a few other sites within his network of properties dedicated to things like Cars and Motorcycles. Nothing worth hacking for it's own right? Just a nice security system he's designed to practice against..which is what he figures he's seeing in those IP's hitting again and again over weeks and months.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Ha ha....technological target practice...

Food for thought, did you consider that those IPs may also be casing the his servers because of who trafficks them? If I am social engineering a particular target....say "Guy X" and he regularly visits "Site Z," then I may also want to case out "Site Z" to gather intel on him to be used to further the social engineering project. While I realize this may not be the likely scenario given what you've said about your friend's server hits, it does happen and regularly.

they should assume they have already been hacked. the best hacks are the ones that go undetected.

all you can do is minimize risk. but you can't stop the carelessness of the giant egos that run washington.

the best hackers would target high level members at their homes, intercept phone calls, hack blackberrries etc.

but hackers like these would be foreign espionage agents.

if you target the decision makers, then you wouldn't need to target the information 2nd, 3rd, or 4th hand, which what it would basically be by the time it hits nsa or council foreign relation servers.

Originally posted by randomname
they should assume they have already been hacked. the best hacks are the ones that go undetected.

all you can do is minimize risk. but you can't stop the carelessness of the giant egos that run washington.

True that, homeskillet....

Ego has been the downfall of many a man (or woman)

dood you read this article?same page as your link??
freebeacon.com...

Whats the point of asking the Chinese for assurances when their gov is already hacking the crap out of the free worlds technology?????

This shows that those in power are actually working through china and the US !
Why would we export sensitive data to china and ask them for assurances they wont peek??
Washington is absolutely brain dead.......

Couldn't happen to a better bunch of douche bags. Is it me or are these "Reptillian bastards" having a hard time lately? Get the F$ck off our planet.....NOW!!! Wow! I just got a real tin foil hat, no more aluminum foil for me, it causes alzheimers ya know!

reply to post by Maxmars


Maxmars, So Madame Hillary calls the CFR the "mothership"? That's pretty telling. I tell ya the David Icke thing is not wrong! These bastards really are Reptillian aliens from the fourth dimension! (or at least controlled by aforementioned dark forces)

reply to post by stirling


Yeah, I get it. I'd make a rather rude comment about that article, but I'd probably get a TOS violation if I did.

There are already serious epic failures in supply chain management of government hardware. Then you see something like GE wanting to manufacture nuke parts in China so they can take advantage of the "cheap labor" and you wonder why we are in the state we are in....

So....now do you have any questions why Michigan made the decisions that they did in regards to unions? Yes, this IS all connected, albeit not directly or obviously.

“This was a very sophisticated attack,” said one of the specialists. “They were looking for very specific information from specific people.”

Kind of interesting quote taken from the OP's posted article. What information and on who?

GE plans to make nuclear reactor parts in China

For those that missed the link posted above....

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is supporting a bid by General Electric to export jobs and nuclear technology to China by seeking assurances from Beijing that it will not steal or transfer valuable reactor technology, the Free Beacon has learned.

Clinton’s support for a future deal with GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy, a Wilmington, N.C., company, to make reactor vessels in China for a nuclear plant it hopes to build in India was disclosed in a cable sent Nov. 21 to the United States Embassy in Beijing. The cable directs embassy officials to seek Beijing’s assurances that GE-Hitachi nuclear technology would not be transferred to other states or stolen, as outlined under the terms of a 2003 U.S.-China agreement on nuclear technology cooperation.

And how about this gem?

China has been identified by the CIA and Congress as a major proliferator of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and also is among the most aggressive states engaged in economic espionage.

According to China First’s website, the company is engaged in both civilian and defense manufacturing. It described the company as “one of the fifty-three backbone enterprises under the management of the central government that directly related to the national security and economy.”

Originally posted by CIAGypsy
reply to post by Maxmars

 

Max,

I was waiting for someone to pull that particular paragraph and focus in on it. It stands to reason that many people who are excluded from the "club" will point to those "in the club" and say that they have unfair access. It is the nature of the human condition and has happened since the beginning of time.

ETA - Let's philosophize how effective the CFR would be if it were made up of a bunch of "unknown, regular people." Would there even be such a thing? Or would those "unknown, regular people" be given such scrutiny to make them pseudo-celebrities and you'd end up with....well, what you've got right now?

And who doesn't think that Hillary Clinton is whacked out, anyway? Personally (yes, this is my OPINION), she has the classic traits of a sociopath.

Oh goodie! I have always enjoyed these conversations... especially in regards to the CFR. The history is rich and compelling, the payers since the CFR's incorporation in 1921, the intricate intertwining between the CFR and the The Royal Institute of International Affairs (as we know it today; ) All these things make a great story and one that anyone who studies the workings of the elite 'social' world should include.

But I mean not to ignore your direct query... "...how effective the CFR would be if it were made up of a bunch of "unknown, regular people."

I believe, with all due respect, that the question itself is off-kilter.... it's not a matter of what person, or quality of person, should be a member...but rather whether such an organization should exist at all.

Embracing the need for a private institution of a self-proclaimed intellectual elite to explore and deliver policy recommendations to the representatives of our government is analogous to saying it is proper that we subjugate ourselves by debt under the economic monopoly of a private bank, rather than coin our own currency.

Shouldn't such policy be a matter of government (the people) - rather than the pretense of an intellectual elite dedicated to the proposition that "people" cannot rule themselves?

But I digress....



Institutional quotes:

“The goal should be to redefine sovereignty for the era of globalisation, to find a balance between a world of fully sovereign states and an international system of either world government or anarchy.”

"Its [the CFR's] mission was not only to "inform" but also to "guide" American public opinion."

"But the project was revived, and the scholars -- badly in need of money, as always -- joined forces with a parallel undertaking of financiers and international lawyers."

The CFR and the Royal Institute of International Affairs started out as a 'collective' enterprise ... but soon fashioned itself into the more publicly palatable separate entities we know today. The inception of the CFR was contemporary to Woodrow Wilson, (along with the Federal Reserve Bank), which proves (to me) that the most dangerous aspect of higher education is the illusion of intellectual superiority it engenders. But once her forefathers determined that it could not take on the international qualities of say, the League of Nations, for example, the CFR came into its own:

But it was a more discreet club of New York financiers and international lawyers organized in June 1918 that most attracted the attention of the Americans from the Peace Conference. Headed by Elihu Root, the secretary of state under Theodore Roosevelt and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, this select group called itself the Council on Foreign Relations. It began with 108 members, Shepardson recorded, “high-ranking officers of banking, manufacturing, trading and finance companies, together with many lawyers.” Its purpose was to convene dinner meetings, to make contact with distinguished foreign visitors under conditions congenial to future commerce.

Looks like a framework to render "mercantilism" a viable post-19th century approach to the consolidation of wealth to me. But let's not allow my cynicism to ruin the tale.

It occurs to me that I have inadvertently cluttered your thread with a wall of text that may not be well received. If such is the case I apologize. When it comes to this topic, I am prone to lose my sense of self-restraint.

Suffice to say, when I imagine any institution serving my government as a source of wisdom and guidance, I expect public transparency and at least a modicum of humility..... that was not among the first steps taken by this group who identify themselves as 'creme of the crop' and began their existence with phrases like " “The Council never takes part in affairs for the general public,” which was declared by Walter Mallory, among the earliest Council officers. "

Originally posted by CIAGypsy
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

Food for thought, did you consider that those IPs may also be casing the his servers because of who trafficks them?

That is a distinct possibility actually and very much food for thought. It's no secret and they hit MANY people so it's not creating an issue to say that his site was among those targeted and victimized by the Righthaven extortion scams. (They can sue ME if they don't like how I put it ) That could be a factor to make his sites stand out on a list of interest more than others.

Something else occurred to me though since last posting on the thread. There may be a whole different reason that is so obvious, I feel stupid I didn't see it, in terms of why nations like Iran, China, Myanmar and others have one BOOMING hacker/cracker community. ...Think about this. If you have your own citizens hitting all the right targets for pure practice, training and amusement ...... It's SIMPLE to drop official Government cyber-war efforts right into the masses and who'd ever even notice the newcomer in the mix ...until the pro succeeds. Then it's too late anyway. Hmmm... Maybe they are far more clever and deliberate on some of this than we give credit for?

reply to post by Maxmars


Excellent response, Maxmars.

It always amazes me how some refuse to see.