Do you care about china hacking?

[Sirkarl101]

China reportedly hacked in to the United States Chamber of Commerce and accessed the millions of files on companies. Do you care? What should we do?

 

[Clementine]

China reportedly hacked in to the United States Chamber of Commerce and accessed the millions of files on companies. Do you care? What should we do?

This is awful. I wish we had a leader who could stand up to China. Actually, China practically owns us so maybe they were just checking on their investment.

 

[occupied]

Maybe the government should mandate better security standards on private networks? Industrial espionage is a private sector problem, would the government even be welcome trying to harden these networks to foreign hacking? Or should they stay out of it and let the free market handle the solution to China and others stealing information?

 

[waltky]

Chinese Military Linked To Hacking US...

Chinese military linked to advanced hacking group targeting US companies
February 19, 2013 - A group linked to the Chinese military has stolen massive amounts of data from over 100 different targets, most of which are based in the U.S., a security firm said in a report released Tuesday.

The Wall Street Journal reports Internet security company Mandiant says in the report it traced 141 major hacking attempts to a People's Liberation Army building in Shanghai, 115 of which targeted U.S. companies or organizations. China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Tuesday he doubted the evidence would withstand scrutiny. "To make groundless accusations based on some rough material is neither responsible nor professional," he said according to The Associated Press.

Mandiant didn't name specific targets of the attacks but said they included information technology firms and telecommunications to aerospace and energy companies. The stolen information allegedly includes blueprints, details on proprietary processes, pricing documents and contact lists. The report also cites a memo from a Chinese telecommunications provider supplying communications links to the building where the hacking allegedly occurs, saying it would "smoothly accomplish this task for the military based on the principle that national defense construction is important."

China has frequently been accused of hacking, but says it strictly outlaws the practice and says it is itself a victim of such crimes The Mandiant report comes a week after President Obama issued a long-awaited executive order aimed at getting the private owners of power plants and other critical infrastructure to share data on attacks with officials and to begin to follow consensus best practices on security. Both Democrats and Republicans have said more powerful legislation is needed, citing Chinese penetration not just of the largest companies but of operations essential to a functioning country, including those comprising the electric grid.

Read more: Chinese military linked to advanced hacking group targeting US companies | Fox News

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US security firm alleges massive Chinese hacking
Feb 19,`13 -- Cyberattacks that stole massive amounts of information from military contractors, energy companies and other key industries in the U.S. and elsewhere have been traced to the doorstep of a Chinese military unit, a U.S. security firm alleged Tuesday.

China's Foreign Ministry dismissed the report as "groundless," and the Defense Ministry denied any involvement in hacking attacks. China has frequently been accused of hacking, but the report by Virginia-based Mandiant Corp. contains some of the most extensive and detailed accusations to date linking its military to a wave of cyberspying against U.S. and other foreign companies and government agencies. Mandiant said it traced the hacking back to a neighborhood in the outskirts of Shanghai that includes a drab, white 12-story office building run by "Unit 61398" of the People's Liberation Army. The unit "has systematically stolen hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organizations," Mandiant wrote. By comparison, the U.S. Library of Congress 2006-2010 Twitter archive of about 170 billion tweets totals 133.2 terabytes. "From our observations, it is one of the most prolific cyberespionage groups in terms of the sheer quantity of information stolen," the company said. It added that the unit has been in operation since at least 2006.

Mandiant said it decided that revealing the results of its investigation was worth the risk of the hackers changing their tactics and becoming even more difficult to trace. "It is time to acknowledge the threat is originating in China, and we wanted to do our part to arm and prepare security professionals to combat that threat effectively," it said. In a statement faxed to The Associated Press, the Defense Ministry firmly rejected any involvement in hacking, saying Chinese law forbids all activities harming Internet security. "The Chinese government has always firmly combated such activities and the Chinese military has never supported any form of hacking activity," the ministry said. "Statements to the effect that the Chinese military takes part in Internet attacks are unprofessional and are not in accordance with the facts."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei did not directly address the claims, but when questioned on the report Tuesday, he said he doubted the evidence would withstand scrutiny. "To make groundless accusations based on some rough material is neither responsible nor professional," Hong told reporters at a regularly scheduled news conference. Reiterating a standard China government response on hacking claims, Hong said China itself is a major victim of such crimes, including attacks originating in the United States. "As of now, the cyberattacks and cybercrimes China has suffered are rising rapidly every year," Hong said.

Mandiant's methodology used in the investigation was sound, said Massimo Cotrozzi, managing director of KCS Group, a London-based international cyber investigation consulting firm that was not involved in Mandiant's research. "No one as yet has provided the world conclusive evidence of a link between the Chinese military and the attacks. This report is the nearest thing to conclusive evidence that I have seen," Cotrozzi said. Mandiant said its findings led it to alter the conclusion of a 2010 report it wrote on Chinese hacking, in which it said it was not possible to determine the extent of government knowledge of such activities. "The details we have analyzed during hundreds of investigations convince us that the groups conducting these activities are based primarily in China and that the Chinese government is aware of them," the company said in a summary of its latest report.

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[AceRothstein]

Care about it? Yes
Worry about it? No

I also have no doubt that we are hacking them as well.

 

[AceRothstein]

Actually, China practically owns us so maybe they were just checking on their investment.

This has to be the most repeated fallacy on this board. China owns about 7% of our debt.

 

[longknife]

There were dozens of post this morning on the Chinese hacking US and other countries. There are more about the US anti-cyber terror set up in Washington.

Looks like it's gonna be a face-to-face over which country has the best hackers.

 

[Katzndogz]

Owning our debt is slight compared to what Chinese interests own in terms of business, real estate and infrastructure.

 

[waltky]

Obama gettin' ready to roll out the sanctions...

US ready to strike back against China cyberattacks
Feb 19,`13 WASHINGTON (AP) -- As public evidence mounts that the Chinese military is responsible for stealing massive amounts of U.S. government data and corporate trade secrets, the Obama administration is eyeing fines and other trade actions it may take against Beijing or any other country guilty of cyberespionage.

According to officials familiar with the plans, the White House will lay out a new report Wednesday that suggests initial, more-aggressive steps the U.S. would take in response to what top authorities say has been an unrelenting campaign of cyberstealing linked to the Chinese government. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the threatened action. The White House plans come after a Virginia-based cybersecurity firm released a torrent of details Monday that tied a secret Chinese military unit in Shanghai to years of cyberattacks against U.S. companies. After analyzing breaches that compromised more than 140 companies, Mandiant has concluded that they can be linked to the People's Liberation Army's Unit 61398.

Military experts believe the unit is part of the People's Liberation Army's cyber-command, which is under the direct authority of the General Staff Department, China's version of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As such, its activities would be likely to be authorized at the highest levels of China's military.

The release of Mandiant's report, complete with details on three of the alleged hackers and photographs of one of the military unit's buildings in Shanghai, makes public what U.S. authorities have said less publicly for years. But it also increases the pressure on the U.S. to take more forceful action against the Chinese for what experts say has been years of systematic espionage. "If the Chinese government flew planes into our airspace, our planes would escort them away. If it happened two, three or four times, the president would be on the phone and there would be threats of retaliation," said former FBI executive assistant director Shawn Henry. "This is happening thousands of times a day. There needs to be some definition of where the red line is and what the repercussions would be."

Henry, now president of the security firm CrowdStrike, said that rather than tell companies to increase their cybersecurity the government needs to focus more on how to deter the hackers and the nations that are backing them. James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that in the past year the White House has been taking a serious look at responding to China, adding that "this will be the year they will put more pressure on, even while realizing it will be hard for the Chinese to change. There's not an on-off switch."

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[AmyNation]

I care. It's a serious issue, and just one of many that lead me to believe we can end up in an all out war with China if we aren't careful.

 

[Politico]

EVetubody has been hacking everybody for years.

 

[Mad Scientist]

EVetubody has been hacking everybody for years.

The Gov't want's to scare us into accepting an "Internet Kill Switch".

 

[JQPublic1]

China reportedly hacked in to the United States Chamber of Commerce and accessed the millions of files on companies. Do you care? What should we do?

I think Cyberspace is the battleground of the future. Our national secrets have become digitized and are more vulnerable than ever before. Private companies and contractors invent and manufacture weapons and other things that give the US a technological advantage over the rest of the world. But that advantage is deteriorating rapidly as hacking and other means of infiltration increase. While Chinese and other Asian immigrants are seen as model minorities, some of the most dangerous spies may be ensconced among them. I don't know how background checks for the brightest of Chinese immigrants are
conducted but some have likely managed to obtain positions in companies where sensitive technological or other info is stored. However, the Chinese are not the only foreign entities seeking clues and information about the American Industrial Complex... most of the world is doing the same as the Chinese!

 

[waltky]

Yea, Chinese gov't prob'ly payin' `em...


Analysis: The near impossible battle against hackers everywhere
25 Feb.`13 - Dire warnings from Washington about a "cyber Pearl Harbor" envision a single surprise strike from a formidable enemy that could destroy power plants nationwide, disable the financial system or cripple the U.S. government.

But those on the front lines say it isn't all about protecting U.S. government and corporate networks from a single sudden attack. They report fending off many intrusions at once from perhaps dozens of countries, plus well-funded electronic guerrillas and skilled criminals. Security officers and their consultants say they are overwhelmed. The attacks are not only from China, which Washington has long accused of spying on U.S. companies, many emanate from Russia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Western countries. Perpetrators range from elite military units to organized criminal rings to activist teenagers. "They outspend us and they outman us in almost every way," said Dell Inc's chief security officer, John McClurg. "I don't recall, in my adult life, a more challenging time."

The big fear is that one day a major company or government agency will face a severe and very costly disruption to their business when hackers steal or damage critical data, sabotage infrastructure or destroy consumers' confidence in the safety of their information. Elite security firm Mandiant Corp on Monday published a 74-page report that accused a unit of the Chinese army of stealing data from more than 100 companies. While China immediately denied the allegations, Mandiant and other security experts say the hacker group is just one of more than 20 with origins in China. Chinese hackers tend to take aim at the largest corporations and most innovative technology companies, using trick emails that appear to come from trusted colleagues but bear attachments tainted with viruses, spyware and other malicious software, according to Western cyber investigators.

A general view of 'Unit 61398', a secretive Chinese military unit, in the outskirts of Shanghai, February 19, 2013. The unit is believed to be behind a series of hacking attacks, a U.S. computer security company said, prompting a strong denial by China and accusations that it was in fact the victim of U.S. hacking.

Eastern European criminal rings, meanwhile, use "drive-by downloads" to corrupt popular websites, such as NBC.com last week, to infect visitors. Though the malicious programs vary, they often include software for recording keystrokes as computer users enter financial account passwords. Others getting into the game include activists in the style of the loosely associated group known as Anonymous, who favor denial-of-service attacks that temporarily block websites from view and automated searches for common vulnerabilities that give them a way in to access to corporate information. An increasing number of countries are sponsoring cyber weapons and electronic spying programs, law enforcement officials said. The reported involvement of the United States in the production of electronic worms including Stuxnet, which hurt Iran's uranium enrichment program, is viewed as among the most successful.

Iran has also been blamed for a series of unusually effective denial-of-service attacks against major U.S. banks in the past six months that blocked their online banking sites. Iran is suspected of penetrating at least one U.S. oil company, two people familiar with the ongoing investigation told Reuters. "There is a battle looming in any direction you look," said Jeff Moss, the chief information security officer of ICANN, a group that manages some of the Internet's key infrastructure. "Everybody's personal objectives go by the wayside when there is just fire after fire," said Moss, who also advises the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

HUNDREDS OF CASES UNREPORTED

See also:

Chinese hackers seen as increasingly professional
Feb 25,`13 -- Beijing hotly denies accusations of official involvement in massive cyberattacks against foreign targets, insinuating such activity is the work of rogues. But at least one element cited by Internet experts points to professional cyberspies: China's hackers take the weekend off.

Accusations of state-sanctioned hacking took center stage this past week following a detailed report by a U.S.-based Internet security firm Mandiant. It added to growing suspicions that the Chinese military is not only stealing national defense secrets and harassing dissidents but also pilfering information from foreign companies that could be worth millions or even billions of dollars. Experts say Chinese hacking attacks are characterized not only by their brazenness, but by their persistence. "China conducts at least an order of magnitude more than the next country," said Martin Libicki, a specialist on cyber warfare at the Rand Corporation, based in Santa Monica, California. The fact that hackers take weekends off suggests they are paid, and that would belie "the notion that the hackers are private," he said.

Libicki and other cyber warfare experts have long noted a Monday-through-Friday pattern in the intensity of attacks believed to come from Chinese sources, though there has been little evidence released publicly directly linking the Chinese military to the attacks. Mandiant went a step further in its report Tuesday saying that it had traced hacking activities against 141 foreign entities in the U.S. Canada, Britain and elsewhere to a group of operators known as the "Comment Crew" or "APT1," for "Advanced Persistent Threat 1," which it traced back to the People's Liberation Army Unit 61398. The unit is headquartered in a nondescript 12-story building inside a military compound in a crowded suburb of China's financial hub of Shanghai. Attackers stole information about pricing, contract negotiations, manufacturing, product testing and corporate acquisitions, the company said.

Hacker teams regularly began work, for the most part, at 8 a.m. Beijing time. Usually they continued for a standard work day, but sometimes the hacking persisted until midnight. Occasionally, the attacks stopped for two-week periods, Mandiant said, though the reason was not clear. China denies any official involvement, calling such accusations "groundless" and insisting that Beijing is itself a major victim of hacking attacks, the largest number of which originate in the U.S. While not denying hacking attacks originated in China, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Thursday that it was flat out wrong to accuse the Chinese government or military of being behind them.

Mandiant and other experts believe Unit 61398 to be a branch of the PLA General Staff's Third Department responsible for collection and analysis of electronic signals such as e-mails and phone calls. It and the Fourth Department, responsible for electronic warfare, are believed to be the PLA units mainly responsible for infiltrating and manipulating computer networks. China acknowledges pursuing these strategies as a key to delivering an initial blow to an opponent's communications and other infrastructure during wartime - but the techniques are often the same as those used to steal information for commercial use. China has consistently denied state-sponsored hacking, but experts say the office hours that the cyberspies keep point to a professional army rather than mere hobbyists or so-called "hacktivists" inspired by patriotic passions.

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[RoadVirus]

Obama gettin' ready to roll out the sanctions...

US ready to strike back against China cyberattacks
Feb 19,`13 WASHINGTON (AP) -- As public evidence mounts that the Chinese military is responsible for stealing massive amounts of U.S. government data and corporate trade secrets, the Obama administration is eyeing fines and other trade actions it may take against Beijing or any other country guilty of cyberespionage.

Fines and trade actions? I'm sure the CHICOMs are shakin' in their boots.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

China reportedly hacked in to the United States Chamber of Commerce and accessed the millions of files on companies. Do you care? What should we do?

When the U.S. government is likely the largest culprit of cyber-attacks? No, not really. China's hacking the U.S., the U.S. is hacking China. This is, unfortunately, diplomacy in 2013 it would seem.

 

[Mr. H.]

Hack attack ack ack ack ack ack!

 

[waltky]

Susan Rice speaks to U.S./China relations in wake of Chinese hacking...

US: China Cyberespionage Puts 'Enormous Strain' on Ties
SEPT. 21, 2015, WASHINGTON — Cyberespionage for economic gain by China is putting "enormous strain" on U.S.-China relations and needs to stop, President Barack Obama's national security adviser said Monday.

Susan Rice was speaking on relations between the two world powers at George Washington University ahead of a high-profile state visit this week by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Rice urged China to join the U.S. in promoting responsible forms of state behavior in cyberspace. She said it would be a "critical factor" in determining trajectory of US-China ties. "This isn't a mild irritation; it's an economic and national security concern to the United States. It puts enormous strain on our bilateral relationship," Rice said.

Hacking attacks on U.S. companies and government agencies have become a growing source of tension ahead of the visit by Xi, who will meet Obama on Friday. "We want a business climate where intellectual property rights and trade secrets are respected, not stolen," Rice said. China is suspected in the recent theft of personal data of millions of current and former U.S. government employees. The U.S. has not publicly blamed China for that breach. Experts suspect it was designed to gather intelligence rather than for commercial gain.

Rice's overriding theme was a familiar one: The U.S. wants to cooperate with China on tackling global concerns, but China should abide by global norms — in economic policy, its security policy and behavior in the disputed seas of East Asia and in human rights. "This is a vital relationship of the 21st century, and we have to be upfront about our differences, because they are preventing us from reaching the full potential of our cooperation," she said.

Referring to the South China Sea, where China has spooked its neighbors by building artificial islands with military facilities to assert its disputed territorial claims, Rice asserted that the U.S. "will sail, fly and operate anywhere that international law permits." But Rice noted that confidence-building measures by the U.S. and Chinese militaries agreed last year have reduced the risk of "unintended incidents" between the two forces in the Asia-Pacific — where China is emerging as a challenge to decades of U.S. pre-eminence.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/09/21/us/politics/ap-us-united-states-china-cyber.html