Slashdot Log In
China's Cyber-Militia
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat May 31, 2008 03:31 PM
from the less-power-to-you dept.
from the less-power-to-you dept.
D. J. Keenan notes that the cover story of the current issue of National Journal reports in depth on China's cyber-aggression against US targets in the government, military, and business. We have discussed China's actions on numerous occasions over the years. The news in this report is the suggestion that Chinese cyber-attackers may have been involved in major power outages in the US. "Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of US companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings in China, and, in a few cases, gained access to electric power plants in the United States, possibly triggering two recent and widespread blackouts in Florida and the Northeast, according to US government officials and computer-security experts..."
Related Stories
[+]
Chinese "Cyber-Attack" US Department of Commerce 161 comments
Kranfer writes "The register has an article about how the Chinese have recently launched an attack against the US Department of Commerce. From the article: '...attacks originating from computer crackers largely located in China's Guangdong province are aimed at extracting sensitive information from targets such as the Commerce Department's technology export office. Security consultants and US government officials reckon the assaults have at least the tacit support of the Chinese government...' This is not the first time Chinese hackers have attempted to gain access to US Government systems."
[+]
Politics: Chinese Hack Attacks on DoD Networks Coordinated 295 comments
An anonymous reader writes " The Naval Network Warfare Command says that Chinese hackers are relentlessly targeting Defense Department networks with cyber attacks. The 'volume, proficiency and sophistication' of the attacks supports the theory that the attacks are government supported. The motives of the attacks emanating from China include technology theft, intelligence gathering, exfiltration, research on DOD operations and the creation of dormant presences in DOD network for future action. Onlookers warn that current US defenses against these attacks are 'dysfunctional', and that more aggressive measures should be taken to ensure government network safety."
[+]
Technology: China Taking on U.S. in Cyber Arms Race 262 comments
Pabugs writes with a CNN story about an uncomfortable development in world politics and information technology. According to General Robert Elder, an Air Force military man setting up a 'cyber command' in Louisiana's Barksdale Air Force Base, the nation of China is already in the process of developing their own 'cyber warfare' techniques. While Elder described the bulk of China's operations as focusing on espionage, they and others around the world have more serious goals in mind. "The Defense Department said in its annual report on China's military power last month that China regarded computer network operations -- attacks, defense and exploitation -- as critical to achieving "electromagnetic dominance" early in a conflict. China's People's Liberation Army has established information warfare units to develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems and networks, the Pentagon said. China also was investing in electronic countermeasures and defenses against electronic attack, including infrared decoys, angle reflectors and false-target generators, it said."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Microsoft? Windows? (Score:3, Insightful)
"A computer virus" is as close as this article came to the reason power companies are so wide open to any aggressor.
It's not just power companies. (Score:3, Insightful)
The article mentions large scale government, military and industry intrusions. They also mention criminal gangs and others besides China as those responsible.
This is an odd issue that gives neo-conservatives fits. They like trading with China, so they don't like hearing old school anti-Communist and human rights complaints. They place the interests of large American companies above those of American people, so they don't like hearing bad things about Microsoft. This leads to a large scale head in sand
Re:It's not just power companies. (Score:5, Insightful)
The article mentions large scale government, military and industry intrusions. They also mention criminal gangs and others besides China as those responsible.
Parent
China is well situated. (Score:4, Insightful)
The submitter quotes the most frightening parts of the article [slashdot.org] and our current "trade partner" China is well positioned to spy. We trust them to make equipment and non free software like Cisco routere has proved itself impossible to check.
Still, most of the hacks are common and anyone could do it. Time and time again we read about autopropagating botnets for Windows and how they cover large parts of the internet [usatoday.com]. When that system is used on corporate and government desktops, anyone can exploit it.
Parent
Huh!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huh!? (Score:5, Insightful)
That ANY major infrastructure would be connected to the internet is shocking, and I'd really like to believe that people aren't that stupid...
Parent
Re:of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The computers which control the plant should be physically separated from the computers which are needed/wanted for connection with the internet. Otherwise you are begging for disasters.
It's more like the trees which grow next to the powerlines should be kept trimmed.
Otherwise you are begging for disasters.
Did Hackers Cause the 2003 Northeast Blackout? Umm, No
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/did-hackers-cau.html [wired.com]
So China would have to have planted the race condition in a [General Electric] product used around the world, then, using the most devious malware ever devised, arranged for trees to grow up into exactly the right power lines at precisely the right time to trigger the cascade.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a lot of reason to believe that doing so would result in less secure software. The software would have less people trying to break it, thus less opportunity to find and fix the inevitable bugs. There's something to be said for the trial-by-fire that is a public release of software. And in many cases it probably wouldn't get the
I hope this guy isn't getting paid (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, has professional writing ever gone downhill. Ever heard of a period?
Re:I hope this guy isn't getting paid (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:I hope this guy isn't getting paid (Score:5, Informative)
Professional writing used to be a competition to put on paper the longest sentence with the least amount of punctuation possible.
What we call a paragraph, they called a sentence.
Parent
Some quotes from the article (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a long article, but worth reading. The suspicion of Chinese involvement in two major U.S. power outages is extremely worrying. Following are quotes on related aspects.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you don't want to go there, the short version is that the data for hacking into the power systems is pretty darn weak.
Since we can't beat up Iran anymore, we have to have somebody to hate.
Just wait (Score:5, Funny)
"hacked by chinese" (Score:4, Funny)
What kind of un-patched Windows crap... (Score:4, Insightful)
What kind of un-patched Windows crap is running the power grid?
Of course the attackers are guilty; but that doesn't excuse foolish security practices. Nevermind bad security on the end-point, or in the software. It seems like the power company, with all its rights-of-way, shouldn't even have to route over the public network. Routing over a private network would provide physical security. Breaking into that requires putting your actual body at the point of attack. Since the power company came before the Internet, I would have thought they had a private network of some kind in place already, or close cooperation with telcos. I guess not.
Did Red China really hire the hackers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military
Can they prove that? This sounds like regular old corporate espionage -- nothing unusual or even foreign there. Is xenophobia starting to take hold, or are those statements substantiated? No time to RTFA.
What really happened .. (Score:3, Informative)
No, what really happened was the grid was overloaded and the SQL virus was playing havoc with connectivity, then a tree fell over and tripped out a line, which spread in a domino effect all the way to Canada. A similar virus tripped out the control system in a Nuclear power plant.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cs_20080531_6948.php [nationaljournal.com]
"During the hour before the Aug. 14 blackout, engineers in the control center of an Ohio utility struggled to figure out why transmission lines were failing and complained that a computer failure was making it difficult to determine what was going on, transcripts of telephone communications released Wednesday show"
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2003/09/60285 [wired.com]
"Software failure cited in August blackout investigation
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/2003/in200314.pdf [nrc.gov]
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/recovery/story/0,10801,87400,00.html [computerworld.com]
Thank you China (Score:4, Insightful)
Scaremongering (Score:5, Insightful)
Apart from that, it isn't exactly difficult to break in to this kind of system - in the past we have seen hackers walk all over the place where they aren't supposed to have been. If script kiddies can do it, is isn't surprising if higly trained miltary personnel can do it too.
But I sincerely doubt that they would leave lots of traces and clues lying around for the more paranoid factions on slashdot to play with. Script-kiddies, yes, but if you are professional, whether criminal or some foreign government, you don't just blunder stupidly in and trigger alarms, or leave your droppings all over the place.
I can see how this kind of nonsense is politically useful. Hasn't the American public caught on to this yet?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When will we retailate? As soon as... (Score:5, Insightful)
Till then, they get to do as they please, same as any nuclear-armed country.
Parent
Re:wake up people (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Washington is full of pussies (Score:4, Insightful)
Funnily enough, that's what everyone in Europe was saying in 1913.
Parent