workshop of the world

So, a major Chinese hacking network is discovered: Tibetans in exile targeted, and much much more:

Researchers found that ministries of foreign affairs of Iran, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Barbados and Bhutan appear to had been targeted.

Hacked systems were also discovered in the embassies of India, South Korea, Indonesia, Romania, Cyprus, Malta, Thailand, Taiwan, Portugal, Germany and Pakistan.

Analysts say the attacks are in effect industrial espionage, with hackers showing an interest in the activities of lawmakers and major companies. Beijing denies responsibility.

I’m inclined to believe it, though complicity is a different matter. While political and diplomatic targeting would benefit rival states, governments are also customers for the kind of information harvested by commercially interested parties. So are interested private actors: Last week Haaretz reported that an Israeli security network brought down Hezbollah.tv domain using off the shelf Chinese hacking tools.

There are other factors in play too:

With China's economy cooling down, some of the country's IT professionals are turning to cybercrime, according to a Beijing-based security expert. Speaking at the CanSecWest security conference last week, Wei Zhao, CEO of Knownsec, a Beijing security company, said that while many Chinese workers may be feeling hard times, business is still booming in the country's cybercrime industry.

"As the stock market dropped like a stone, a lot of IT professionals lost lots of money on the stock market," he said. "So sometimes they sell 0days," he said, referring to previously unknown software bugs.

"China is not only the world's factory, but also the world's malware factory,"

One of the things I’ve tried to explain about Mass Group Incidents in China is that their occurrence doesn’t necessarily lead to or indicate more widespread political discontent. A certain amount of chaos is normal for China. Now China seems to be exporting that chaos in viral form.

Anyway, if you want to know what mucky movies the spouse of the Maltese Home Secretary is downloading, you know where to go.

Dark Visitor looks like the place to go for more on the wider world of Chinese hacking.

Comments

[Fellow Traveller]

...using off the shelf Chinese hacking tools

The world now really does sound like an early William Gibson novel.

...if you want to know what mucky movies the spouse of the Maltese Home Secretary is downloading, you know where to go

The pub where Virgin's network systems people drink. A few rounds later and I'll have the printout of everything he's looked at and downloaded in the last year (retained by the ISP courtesy of government legislation). They can probably recite it from memory at this point.

The stuff that dreams are made of? Don't mention the dingus to the fat man.

[Tom]

"The pub where Virgin's network systems people drink. A few rounds later and I'll have the printout of everything he's looked at and downloaded in the last year."

A few rounds later and you'll be on the floor feeling ill, trust me. I *work* with these guys. Many of them are unrepentently Welsh.