Australia Targeted By State-Sponsored Cyber Attack (ft.com) 25
A sophisticated, state-sponsored cyber attack is targeting Australian government, business, education and political organisations [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], the prime minister has warned. From a report: Scott Morrison did not reveal the identity of the state actor that was responsible for the attacks, which he said had been launched over many months. But the scale and sophistication of the malicious activity prompted cyber-security experts to speculate that China was the most likely culprit. "Based on advice provided to me by our cyber experts, Australian organisations are currently being targeted by a sophisticated state-based cyber actor," Mr Morrison said on Friday. "This act is targeting Australian organisations across a range of sectors including all levels of government, industry, political organisations, education, health, essential service providers and operators of other critical infrastructure."
Re: Seriously. (Score:2)
The Chinaman is not the issue! Also, Dude, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian American, please.
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China (Score:3, Insightful)
Scott Morrison did not reveal the identity of the state actor
No need to reveal it. Tensions have been incredibly high between Australia and China in the past 6 months. Every other country is too busy fighting Coronavirus. It was China and if it weren't for the fact that Chinese tariffs are hurting Australian farmers and Australia has little recourse ScoMo would be shouting China from the rooftops.
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And you know that China is dependent on the Iron import from Australia?
I really hope they return the favor and stop exports to China all together.
Yes, China is dependent on iron from Australia. But no where near as dependent as Australia is on exporting iron to China. The producer has no power in this equation as it is the producer who always hurts the most. The Australian economy is currently in the crapper, https://www.rba.gov.au/publica... [rba.gov.au] farmers are suffering because the Chinese stopped buying Barley, what do you think would realistically happen if the government announces that they will cut off the customers from Australia's biggest industry, o
Re: China (Score:1)
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Yes, China is dependent on iron from Australia. But no where near as dependent as Australia is on exporting iron to China. The producer has no power in this equation as it is the producer who always hurts the most. The Australian economy is currently in the crapper, https://www.rba.gov.au/publica [rba.gov.au]... [rba.gov.au] farmers are suffering because the Chinese stopped buying Barley, what do you think would realistically happen if the government announces that they will cut off the customers from Australia's biggest industry, one already suffering from reduced energy demand?
China's economy is deeper in the crapper.
If China had a choice, do you think they wouldn't have targeted iron ore already?
They already targeted food, tourism and education.
The only chance for China's economy is massive government infrastructure investment. And that needs iron ore. Over 60% of China's iron ore comes from Australia. [cnbc.com]
The second biggest exporter is Brazil at about only 1/3 the size and decreasing. (Brazil also have a lot of other problems, not just coronavirus related.) There basically isn'
Spoiler Warning (Score:2)
AttackS, plural (Score:2)
I think the reason you don't see details about "the attack" is that despite the headline here, the PM was talking about attacks in the plural, many attacks on many targets over many months.
What can be gleaned from hsi statements is that high level government officials are aware that serious attacks are taking place, that it's something to take seriously. That's different from ten years ago.
As an illustration of the difference, my salary in the infosec field has gone up 3X in the last five years and 6X in t
F-22 (Score:3)
WTF, it would create jobs, it would help keep China and Russia in check, it would protect our ally, ...just update the avionics and software.
The F-22 project was killed because it did not fit into the US defense plans [slate.com], but it could be an export system. Well, here is the WIKI [wikipedia.org] page on Australia's Aviation Manufacturing capability.
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Inconclusive and lazy (Score:2)
They specifically state that no nation has been named and that only a certain number of nations could be the culprit. There has been no evidence provided, which supports China as the culprit, nor that it is the Chinese government doing it.
This is a game of finger pointing to see who blinks and serves Australia as a deflection from a different problem... Their lack of cyber security and counter intelligence.
When one cannot tell who is attacking and sees the number of attacks growing over years then one doesn
Re:Inconclusive and lazy (Score:4, Insightful)
Australia obviously knows who is responsible. It's just not economically safe for them to say so.
Just propaganda (Score:2, Interesting)
They say China is one of the few states, along with Russia, Iran, and North Korea, which have the capacity for such attacks - and are not allied with Australia. However, they also note that cyber espionage between countries and even allies is common
In other words, word was passed down that someone higher up wanted to stir up some anti-China sentiment, so they dug through the mail filters of a bunch of organizations, found some phishing emails from China, and voila you have your story. What they leave out is there are always phishing emails coming in from Russia, China, the USA, and so on *all the time.* That is their intel agencies doing what they are paid to do: getting footholds and collecting information. It's
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From the linked (non-paywalled) source:
They say China is one of the few states, along with Russia, Iran, and North Korea, which have the capacity for such attacks - and are not allied with Australia. However, they also note that cyber espionage between countries and even allies is common
In other words, word was passed down that someone higher up wanted to stir up some anti-China sentiment, so they dug through the mail filters of a bunch of organizations, found some phishing emails from China, and voila you have your story. What they leave out is there are always phishing emails coming in from Russia, China, the USA, and so on *all the time.* That is their intel agencies doing what they are paid to do: getting footholds and collecting information. It's not like some agency in China got the word a few days ago or whenever to "attack Australia." They are doing this all the time, to almost everyone.
Yeah nice try Mr. China, but we all know the Chinese are actually attacking everyone else.
Re:Just propaganda (Score:5, Informative)
word was passed down that someone higher up wanted to stir up some anti-China sentiment
Not sure what you're talking about, but since you're not aware tensions have been incredibly high between China and Australia in the past 6 months. They have been engaging in a tit-for-tat economic war. No need to dig out some "anti-China" conspiracy.
Do you think China is just smiling away after Australia headed up the resolution to investigate China for Coronavirus.
Or has stepped up their condemnation of the South China sea policy, and been critical of their handling of Hong Kong?
Or how Australia has blocked Chinese students from entering the country right at the start of university season, after taking their university fees may I add.
Or how Australia reissued travel warnings on China after lifting them from COVID-19
Or criticised the government over their criminal justice system.
Maybe you missed how China in the past 6 months has blocked Australian travelers.
Or Conveniently decided now is a good time to sentence an Australian who has spent years in a Chinese jail to death, one that no one had heard from in years.
Or how China put tariffs on Barley imports from Australia putting really strong strain on farming.
Or blocked beef imports into China from Australia claiming some infection (let's face it the only thing they haven't blocked yet is Iron ore)
I don't know why you need to make up some conspiracy when a cyber attack fits perfectly in the above tit-for-tat argument that is going on between the countries.
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"fits perfectly" also describes what I said. My point wasn't that there isn't any conflict.
No, conspiracy theory describes what you said, precisely because of the insane amount of actual conflict right now.
They have no clue (Score:2)
They have no clue who's be behind it.
They have no clue how to stop it.
But they're always so sure there's a state actor behind it.
At least it sounds a lot cooler than a bunch of script kiddies.
Not the NSA then :] (Score:1)
that explains it (Score:2)
A few days ago i got a robocall, in either Cantonese or Mandarin (i'm too much of a gwailo to be able to tell them apart). i said the first thing that came into my mind (which, unfortunately, was "cao ni ma") and hung up. only then did i remember what it means. i hope i didn't escalate this whole thing.