1300 Systems In 103 Countries Breached: Report
NYT & AGENCIES
Toronto: A vast electronic spying operation from China has infiltrated computers and stolen documents from hundreds of government and private offices around the world, including those of the Indian embassy in the US and the Dalai Lama’s organization, Canadian researchers have concluded.
In a report to be issued shortly, the researchers said that the system was being controlled from computers based almost exclusively in China, but that they could not say conclusively that the Chinese government was involved.
The researchers, based at the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto, had been asked by the office of the Dalai Lama in India to examine its computers for signs of malicious software, or malware.
Their sleuthing opened a window into a broader operation that, in less than two years, has infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including the Indian embassy in Washington as well as the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan exile centres in India, Brussels, London and New York.
The researchers believed that the system, which they called GhostNet, had hacked into systems at embassies of countries like Pakistan, Germany, Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea. What Is GHOSTNET?
E-spying Operation: Hacks into computers, steals files from govt and pvt offices around the world
Targets: Computer systems in 103 countries, including Indian embassy in Washington, Dalai Lama’s offices, Tibetan exile centres
Controlled: From computers in China. Canadian researchers stop short of naming Chinese govt but a Cambridge group says Beijing involved
Has Big Brother-Style Capacities. Can turn on camera and audio-recording functions of an infected computer, enabling monitors to see and hear what goes on in a room
Impact: After an e-mail invite was sent by Dalai Lama’s office to a foreign diplomat, the Chinese govt called the diplomat discouraging the visit ‘WHALING’ FOR TARGETS Biggest attack: Dozens of PCs
hacked every week
Toronto: Canadian experts have found computer networks at foreign ministries of Bhutan, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Iran and the Philippines, have been hacked. The spying operation is by far the largest to come to light in terms of countries affected.
This is also believed to be the first time researchers have been able to expose the workings of a computer system used in an intrusion of this magnitude.
Still going strong, the operation continues to invade and monitor more than a dozen new computers a week, the researchers said in their report, ‘Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network’. They said they had found no evidence that US government offices had been infiltrated, although a Nato computer was monitored by the spies for half a day.
The malware is remarkable both for its sweep in computer jargon — it has not been merely ‘phishing’ for random consumers information but ‘whaling’ for particular important targets — and for its big brother-style capacities. It can, for example, turn on the camera and audio-recording functions of an infected computer, enabling monitors to see and hear what goes on in a room. The investigators say they do not know if this facet has been employed.
Working with the Tibetans, the researchers found that specific correspondence had been stolen and that the intruders had gained control of the electronic mail server computers of the Dalai Lama’s organization.
The electronic spy game has had at least some real-world impact. For
example, experts said, after an email invitation was sent by the Dalai Lama’s office to a foreign diplomat, the Chinese government made a call to the diplomat discouraging a visit. And a woman working for a group making internet contacts between Tibetan exiles and Chinese citizens was stopped by Chinese intelligence officers on her way back to Tibet, shown transcripts of her online conversations and warned to stop her political activities. A spokesman for the Chinese consulate in New York dismissed the idea that China was involved. NYT & AGENCIES
0 comments:
Post a Comment