Chinese Hackers Hit US Firms Linked To South China Sea Dispute (bloomberg.com) 52
Chinese hackers have launched a wave of attacks on mainly U.S. engineering and defense companies linked to the disputed South China Sea, the cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc. said. From a report: The suspected Chinese cyber-espionage group dubbed TEMP.Periscope appeared to be seeking information that would benefit the Chinese government, said FireEye, a U.S.-based provider network protection systems. The hackers have focused on U.S. maritime entities that were either linked to -- or have clients operating in -- the South China Sea, said Fred Plan, senior analyst at FireEye in Los Angeles.
"They are going after data that can be used strategically, so it is line with state espionage," said Plan, whose firm has tracked the group since 2013. "A private entity probably wouldn't benefit from the sort of data that is being stolen." The TEMP.Periscope hackers were seeking information in areas like radar range or how precisely a system in development could detect activity at sea, Plan said. The surge in attacks picked up pace last month and was ongoing.
"They are going after data that can be used strategically, so it is line with state espionage," said Plan, whose firm has tracked the group since 2013. "A private entity probably wouldn't benefit from the sort of data that is being stolen." The TEMP.Periscope hackers were seeking information in areas like radar range or how precisely a system in development could detect activity at sea, Plan said. The surge in attacks picked up pace last month and was ongoing.
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That scenario [thediplomat.com] has been proposed already. I think it is likely, but murphy's law will make sure the sea level rise doesn't happen until after an exhaustive treaty is reached or a blood war is won.
Re: Unencrypted system is being "attacked" (Score:2)
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You're funny.
How about going to Predict It and putting some money on it.
I love taking money from saps like you.
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Let's hire more women and minorities.
Wouldn't not hiring them mean leaving half of your potential workforce unused? Are you going to wait until another World War before sending the ladies to work?
You just now noticed? (Score:4, Informative)
I get hit thousands of times a day from port scanners, http/SSH vulnerability probes daily from IP addresses all pointing back to China, Korea, the Middle East and Amazon.. You're just now noticing?
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Amazon?! (Score:2, Funny)
So Amazon, LLC is part of the Chinese hack?
Or are you talking Amazon Women who are attacking the US?
The latter may not be bad especially if there's an invasion and I'll be rounded up and executed by Snu Snu.
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Or are you talking Amazon Women who are attacking the US?
The ones on the moon? [wikipedia.org]
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Re: The price of controversy (Score:2)
The cost of Trump (Score:2, Flamebait)
You allow Russia to hack you and don't retaliate, you can't really expect other people from not doing some consequence free hacking of their own.
Re:The cost of Trump (Score:4, Insightful)
China has been hacking the US for longer than Russia and far more pervasively. They just don't bother to monkey in our elections, because they're already winning either way. Russia actually has US politicians who will stand up to them (although they don't seem to have won many elections.)
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There are a lot of non-kinetic responses that could be effective, ranging from sanctions and embargoes (not even that costly in Russia's case), to confiscating assets of their leaders throughout the western world, to simply cutting them off the Internet. Keep in mind that no one wants to rule a parking lot (Putin, Xi and Kim don't want nuclear war).
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China has been hacking the US for longer than Russia and far more pervasively.
You might want to look up "Moonlight Maze" [wikipedia.org] before making statements like that.
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I've just realised that the Wikipedia page I linked to in my previous reply was distinctly light on detail. Sorry.
There's an excellent chapter on Moonlight Maze in Thomas Rid's book Rise of the Machines [wwnorton.com] (The Lost History of Cybernetics). Well worth borrowing from the library, in my opinion.
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It's cute how you assume you would be privy to US retaliation to their election hacking. Personally I am more disturbed over the Russian nerve agent attack on the soil of a NATO ally than any computer hacking.
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Keep your crown jewels off the Internet (Score:1)
"They are going after data that can be used strategically, so it is line with state espionage..."
Keep the parts of your internal network that have "crown jewel level" information unreachable from the outside as much as possible.
If you have to allow data to be moved to the "outside world - for example, so a manager can compose an email that contains summaries of important information - do it in a way that is heavily controlled and audited and extremely difficult to "penetrate from the outside" without trigge
Why isn't incoming traffic inspected and blocked? (Score:2)
Couldn't something be done to choke off more suspicious incoming traffic? Or does it fan out to non-aligned proxy nations to be disguised and forwarded?
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Deny ALL; Allow Whitelisted_IP might help some
Things countries notice (Score:4, Insightful)
It appear's Uncle Sam's recent willingness to drop trou and put his bum in the air for Putin has been noticed elsewhere.
So now China's trying it on.
I wonder who will be next to have a go. Pretty soon, US cyberspace is going to look like Gangbang Night at a Hell's Angels clubhouse.
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Uhh, you do know that foreign hackers have never been more dedicated to targeting the various levels of the US government, right?
Did you never wonder when they realized, say, how easy it is to get away with it?
clickbait. (Score:1)
Had to block 2 more subnets today ... 80.211.128.0/18 out of Italy and 86.49.128.0/17 out of the Czech Republic.
Already block Chinese mainland the last 8 yrs, but they know how to use VPNs.
Thousands of attempts against ssh, email and web servers ain't fun.