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(Reuters) – The recent spate of cyber attacks have raised questions about the security of government and corporate computer systems, and the ability of law enforcement to track down hackers.
Here’s a breakdown of the different types of cyber assaults, from “hactivists” to serious criminals.
DISSIDENT HACKERS SEEKING MAXIMUM PUBLICITY
The Lulz Security and Anonymous groups have broken into computer servers to steal data that they publish on the Internet to embarrass their targets. Examples of this include LulzSec hacking into Fox TV’s “X Factor” contestant database, or breaking into FBI affiliate Infraguard and publishing its user base.
So-called hactivists also use distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, in which they get supporters to crash the websites of their targets by overwhelming the servers with traffic. The Anonymous group launched DOS attacks against Visa and MasterCard because the group thought the companies were hostile to Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange.
CYBER ATTACKS FOR FINANCIAL GAIN
Primarily based on getting financial information, such as payment card data or bank account details, perpetrators tend to keep their attacks secret because the data is more valuable if victims do not know it has been stolen.
Citigroup disclosed that unknown hackers in May had stolen information from 360,083 credit card accounts in North America, in what was the most significant known direct assault on a financial institution.
These attacks can come from just about anywhere, although Western security experts have said that Russia and China deliberately turn a blind eye to this kind of activity from within their borders, provided it is not targeted domestically.
GOVERNMENT OR STATE-BACKED ATTACKS
Hacking by governments or state-sponsored groups is usually aimed at stealing classified information, such as military secrets or other prized data. Security experts have cited attacks on the International Monetary Fund and Google Inc’s email service as recent examples.
There is often finger-pointing at Russia and China after such attacks, although experts suspect other nations including the United States of using this technique more quietly.
There are also occasional suspected state-backed DDOS attacks, such as on Estonia and Georgia in 2007.
FROM VIRTUAL NETWORKS TO THE REAL WORLD
These are cyber attacks aimed at causing actual physical damage, such as by hacking into industrial computer controls to destroy military assets or public infrastructure.
The Stuxnet virus, which Iran has said was used to attack computers at its Bushehr nuclear reactor, is the only case so far that security experts widely agree fits into this category.
(Reporting by Marius Bosch and Jim Finkle; editing by Tiffany Wu)
London, June 25(ANI): The Chinese government represents one of the most significant espionage threats to the United Kingdom, a British official has said.
“They (the Chinese government) continue to devote considerable time and energy trying to steal our sensitive technology on civilian and military projects and trying to obtain political and economic intelligence at our expense,” The Telegraph quoted Jonathan Evans, the Director General of British intelligence agency MI5, as saying.
Evans’ comment comes ahead of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to the UK for the UK-China Strategic Summit.
The summit is an annual meeting between the two nations and is aimed at building bilateral relations.
Jiabao will also meet British Prime Minister David Cameron on Sunday.
Earlier, a 14-page “restricted” report from MI5’s Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) last year had described how China attacked British defence, energy, communications and manufacturing companies in a concerted hacking campaign.
The report had claimed that Chinese agents were trying to cultivate “long-term relationships” with the employees of key British companies.
“Chinese intelligence services have also been known to exploit vulnerabilities such as sexual relationships and illegal activities to pressurize individuals to co-operate with them,” the report had said.
It also warned that hotel rooms in major Chinese cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, frequented by foreigners, were likely to be bugged and have been searched while the occupants are out of the room. (ANI)
It’s easy to eavesdrop on people using the popular mobile messenger WhatsApp. The application sends user names, telephone numbers and even complete instant messages unencrypted over the internet. Adversaries can intercept this information by using a simple network sniffer like the popular Wireshark.
A reader of the Dutch IDG publication Webwereld discovered this vulnerability. He was able to intercept all unencrypted traffic on a network and Webwereld was able to reproduce his findings. At first sight, it looks like WhatsApp is using an SSL secured HTTPS connection to their servers. But this can be falsified on closer inspection. Although all usernames, telephone numbers and all instant messages are transferred via port 443, which is reserved for encrypted traffic, they are sent to WhatsApp’s servers in plain text.
Because of this it’s easy to ascertain private information by using a man-in-the-middle attack. The attack can only be carried out when a smartphone using WhatsApp is connected to an unsecured wireless network, like for instance WiFi hotspots offered at train stations or airports.
Adversaries could also setup a wifi access point with a common SSID of an unencrypted wireless network. This is know as an evil twin network. If the malicious user forwards the requests of the app to the internet, it’s even easier to capture private information. People using only trusted or secured WiFi networks are probably less vulnerable to this attack.
In a statement, WhatsApp says that it “strongly believes in network freedom and privacy” of their users. The company is studying this issue closely but does not wish to comment at this time.
To the discoverer of the vulnerability the company tells a different story. In this comment, WhatsApp states it trusts on 3G and WiFi to protect the traffic. “We do not save or store address book data or your conversations, so there is nothing to encrypt,” a spokeswoman said.
Networking equipment maker Cisco and its top executives were sued last week in San Jose, Calif., for allegedly providing censorship and surveillance technology to China in violation of the Alien Torts Statute.
The Alien Torts Statute allows individuals to file claims in U.S. courts over violations of the law of nations or a U.S. treaty. It has become a tool by which victims of torture seek redress for human rights abuses, particularly those alleged to have occurred outside the U.S.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Chinese practitioners of Falun Gong, a religious group that faces ongoing persecution by Chinese authorities. In addition to Cisco, the complaint names CEO John Chambers, and two Cisco China executives, as well as other unspecified defendants.
The complaint charges that Cisco “designed, supplied, and helped maintain a censorship and surveillance network known as the Golden Shield in collaboration with Chinese Community Party and Chinese Public Security officials, knowing and intending that it would be utilized [by authorities] to eavesdrop, tap, and intercept communications, identify and track Plaintiffs as Falun Gong members for the specific purpose of subjecting them to gross human rights abuses.”
Cisco disputes these claims. “There is no basis for these allegations against Cisco, and we intend to vigorously defend against them,” a company spokesperson said in an email statement. “Cisco does not operate networks in China or elsewhere, nor does Cisco customize our products in any way that would facilitate censorship or repression. Cisco builds equipment to global standards which facilitate free exchange of information, and we sell the same equipment in China that we sell in other nations worldwide in strict compliance with U.S. government regulations.”
China has proven to be a problematic market for many foreign companies, particularly those in the U.S. In 2005, a Chinese court sentenced Chinese journalist Shi Tao to 10 years in prison for revealing state secrets. Yahoo provided Chinese authorities with critical evidence about Shi Tao’s email communication. The incident prompted a widespread outcry against Yahoo and tarnished the company’s reputation. Two years later, Yahoo offered financial support to the families of Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning, another jailed dissident, and then-CEO Jerry Yang delivered a public apology to Shi Tao’s mother at a Congressional hearing.
Google in 2006 acknowledged how difficult it was to provide adequate service to users in China, but insisted the compromises it had to make to do business there would lead to a more open China in the years ahead. Then in early 2010, the company changed course and severely curtailed its operations in China, citing “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google” and attempts to hack into the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.
This is not the first time Cisco has had to justify its business with in China. Cisco was among several Internet companies that testified on Feb. 15, 2006, before a U.S. House of Representatives International Relations subcommittee on the issue of censorship in China. During the hearing, Mark Chandler, Cisco’s SVP and general counsel, defended his company, asserting, “Cisco does not customize, or develop specialized or unique filtering capabilities, in order to enable different regimes to block access to information.”
Yet the company’s claim that it merely provides neutral technology without being aware of how its products will be used was rebutted two months later in a hearing before the same subcommittee on April 19, 2006, when author Ethan Gutmann cited Cisco brochures from the Shanghai Gold Shield trade show in December 2002 as evidence of the company’s effort to cater to the needs of police authorities.
“Newly translated documents explicitly show Cisco was training the Chinese police in surveillance techniques as early as 2001,” Gutmann claimed.
The lawsuit cites internal Cisco marketing material as part of its evidence, but those documents aren’t public yet and there is no way of knowing if they are the same material cited by Gutmann in his testimony. If such marketing material exists and gets introduced as evidence, it’s likely to play a central role in determining the outcome of the lawsuit.
