A United States firm believes they have found evidence that points to a secretive department in the Chinese military as the culprit and brains behind recent cyber attacks on large firms. This unit has been hacking more than one hundred firms worldwide. There is some belief that the Chinese government played a role in the hacking but its very unlikely to know to what extent. The article reports that a Chinese military department, referred to as Unit 61398 has a hundred to thousands of workers who are highly skilled in covert communications and network security. The New York Times hired a firm to investigate China-based cyber attacks.
Link: http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2013/02/chinese-cyberattacks
5 comments:
I find it interesting that the firms hacked- allegedly by the Chinese- are the top strategic industries in China's economic plan. It would be very easy for the Chinese to prove their innocence, if it were actually not guilty. Although with the relationship between China and the US, the idea of suspicion between the two is not surprising. The move to cyber hacking seems to be increasing, with the threats of cyber terrorism especially paired with economic attacks.
This is really scary stuff. I would be very interested in hearing what China's possible motives for hacking into major U.S. corporations were. it will be interesting to see what this evidence does to relations between the two countries. Hopefully the newspaper will be successful in finding more information on this story.
The prediction that was made to explain the reasons for this hacking activity was to get insider information from big corporations to provide Chinese economy a head start. However, Chinese government denied and said they could track it back to the U.S. The hackers can always change the ID, so it's very hard to tell. Yet hacking is still a challenge that can have various negative effects on companies and countries.
I agree with Austin in that I hope even more information surfaces with this. This type of hacking combined with the relationship that the US has with China right now could pose some serious issues. At this point, China getting a head start may be the worst of our issues. I would hate to ruin the growing consumer confidence as we continue to build in our own economy. While I'm sure that the media and government have better discretion, I would hate to see a media panic upset the balance we're working towards.
According to many foreign policy experts, one of the biggest terrorist threats that the world is facing today is a cyber attack. Chinese hacking into the New York Times system has a lot to say about the undercover relationship between US and China, other than the one they have on a diplomatic level. After all, the two are big economic powers in competition with one another. Even though issue of the Chinese government involvement is murky it will be insightful to find the original hackers and their ulterior motives.
Post a Comment