Cyber Spies Break Into Govt. Computers

Maka Albarn · Mar 29, 2009

Yahoo News said:

TORONTO - A cyber spy network based mainly in China hacked into classified documents from government and private organizations in 103 countries, including the computers of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan exiles, Canadian researchers said Saturday.

The work of the Information Warfare Monitor initially focused on allegations of Chinese cyber espionage against the Tibetan community in exile, and eventually led to a much wider network of compromised machines, the Internet-based research group said.

"We uncovered real-time evidence of malware that had penetrated Tibetan computer systems, extracting sensitive documents from the private office of the Dalai Lama," investigator Greg Walton said.

The research group said that while it's analysis points to China as the main source of the network, it has not conclusively been able to detect the identity or motivation of the hackers.

Calls to China's Foreign Ministry and Industry and Information Ministry rang unanswered Sunday. The Chinese Embassy in Toronto did not immediately return calls for comment Saturday.

Students For a Free Tibet activist Bhutila Karpoche said her organization's computers have been hacked into numerous times over the past four or five years, and particularly in the past year. She said she often gets e-mails that contain viruses that crash the group's computers.

The IWM is composed of researchers from Ottawa-based think tank SecDev Group and the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies. The group's initial findings led to a 10-month investigation summarized in the report to be released online Sunday.

The researchers detected a cyber espionage network involving over 1,295 compromised computers from the ministries of foreign affairs of Iran, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Barbados and Bhutan. They also discovered hacked systems in the embassies of India, South Korea, Indonesia, Romania, Cyprus, Malta, Thailand, Taiwan, Portugal, Germany and Pakistan.

Once the hackers infiltrated the systems, they gained control using malware â€” software they install on the compromised computers â€” and sent and received data from them, the researchers said.

Two researchers at Cambridge University in Britain who worked on the part of the investigation related to the Tibetans are also releasing their own report Sunday.

In an online abstract for "The Snooping Dragon: Social Malware Surveillance of the Tibetan Movement," Shishir Nagaraja and Ross Anderson write that while malware attacks are not new, these attacks should be noted for their ability to collect "actionable intelligence for use by the police and security services of a repressive state, with potentially fatal consequences for those exposed."

They say prevention against such attacks will be difficult since traditional defense against social malware in government agencies involves expensive and intrusive measures that range from mandatory access controls to tedious operational security procedures.

The Dalai Lama fled over the Himalaya mountains into exile 50 years ago when China quashed an uprising in Tibet, placing it under its direct rule for the first time. The spiritual leader and the Tibetan government in exile are based in Dharmsala, India.
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Woooow... Gees, hackers seem like they're getting more and more better and sneakier these days. My dad also told me that a group of hackers are going to launch a horrible virus to all computers either by next week or this week. I don't know where he found his information exactly... But he does read the news everyday. Your thoughts on this?

Inasuma · Mar 29, 2009

Better not be like that time when Russia hacked us through China. ****. lol

Krowley · Mar 29, 2009

I heard it was gonna be on April fools Day,

childofturin · Mar 29, 2009

Dear god... I really hope those Chinese hackers never get pissed at the US... Although we probably have some of the best computer defense in he world (aside from maybe Japan XD). I know why they chose the Dalai Lama too - there are (or were, when I heard about it) 2 Dalai Lamas - one that was chosen in the traditional way, and one chosen by the Chinese to be a figurehead. I bet they hacked the real one in order to try to find some kind of dirt or something to bring him down so theirs could be supreme. The Chinese Lama was chosen to try to bring the Tibetans further into Chinese rule. I think. My source is kind of old (I don't even remember where I heard it), but it sounds like something they would do.

LoneWolf · Mar 31, 2009

Yeah I'm not even going to touch my computer tomorrow, speaking of which, we have to renew our virus protection subscription thing, better do that now.

fadedphantom · Mar 31, 2009

Kme92 said: ↑

I heard it was gonna be on April fools Day,
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Yep, that's what they said on the news. Be careful tomorrow everyone, okay?

TheMagicalMisterMistoffelees · Mar 31, 2009

It's called conficker.c, and it likes to nest in system 32 if that's any help. That is, the one that's going to hit tommorow. But these guys seriously knew what they were doing with these, on both counts. Although I'd really more accredit it to the rise of power in technology than the rise of skill in hackers, not that there's not some damn good hackers out there.

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Cyber Spies Break Into Govt. Computers

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