China has penetrated key U.S. databases: SANS director

[OhioChick]

Source: SC Magazine

January 18, 2008

An aggressive, non-stop campaign by China to penetrate key government and industry databases in the United States already has succeeded and the United States urgently needs to monitor all internet traffic to critical government and private-sector networks “to find the enemy within,” SANS Institute Director of Research Alan Paller told SCMagazineUS.com.

“They are already in and we have to find them,” Paller said.

Paller said that empirical evidence analyzed by researchers leaves little doubt that the Chinese government has mounted a non-stop, well-financed attack to breach key national security and industry databases, adding that it is likely that this effort is making use of personnel provided by China's People's Liberation Army.

The “smoking guns” pointing to a government-directed effort are keystroke logs of the attacks, which have been devoid of errors usually found in amateur hack attacks, the use of spear phishing to gain entry into computer networks, and the massively repetitive nature of the assault, the SANS research director said.

“This is not amateur hacking. They are going back to the same places 100 times a day, every day. This kind of an effort requires a massive amount of money and resources,” Paller told SCMagazineUS.com.



Read more: http://www.scmagazineus.com/China-has-penetrated-key-US-databases-SANS-research-director/article/104338/

[Duer 157099]

1. The silver lining: maybe the Chinese have copies of the WH emails

Yeah, I'm grasping, but it's possible.

[2008]

26. oh that's good

now I have cereal on my monitor
:spray:

[Deja Q]

2. Fortunately, they use lots of illegal copies of Windows and Office, abd get legal copies for $3...

Seems they can be hacked just as easily, if not more so too, perhaps?

[WittyUsername]

3. Does this mean the US gov will be hiring an army infosec people?

[Mithreal]

8. Yes nt

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. Don't worry; they're just performing due diligence ahead of their friendly takeover.

Give the ink on the signing statement a few minutes to dry.

[99th_Monkey]

5. Small wonder, since China made the chips in first place.

No doubt "built to spill" the data with .. hackable with the right codes or passwords..

I'm no computer geek by a long shot, but I've seen stuff about this elsewhere, in connection with one of the theories about the
"live nukes over America" incident 5-6 months ago.. that Chinese-made chips may be made to accept an "over-ride" command,
or something like that.

[The Doctor.]

29. Polyon DeGras-Waldheim...

The Anne McCaffrey character who sold chips to the galaxy and nearly took it over with his command codes.

[99th_Monkey]

6. Could Chinese hackers be causing these weird power outages too? interesting possibility.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3146928

[Mithreal]

9. They keep causing my microwave popcorn to burn too. nt

[99th_Monkey]

11. hmm. now that you mention it, I've been having problems with my TV too ..

wait, no .. that's right .. it's because I killed it. nevermind.

[Mithreal]

13. I get weird clicks on my phone too, must be the Chinese : )

[99th_Monkey]

15. They hold most of our debt, make all our chips, & are a bunch of commies. go figur.

just the kind of totalitarians who might be behind those weird clicks..

btw, here's a link to that article i mentioned, in case you've got your tinfoil hat on tonight.
http://www.willthomasonline.net/willthomasonline/Command_Override.html

[orleans]

25. omg--my phone was clicking the other day on one call so much

i couldn't BELIEVE it! we had to hang up because it was pissing me off so much.

[Warren Stupidity]

20. They made my dog take a dump in the family room. nt.

[superconnected]

7. Propaganda. "and the United States urgently needs to monitor all internet -

traffic to critical government and private-sector networks “to find the enemy within."

^The point of the propaganda.

[Mithreal]

10. Exactly, but they are after the home users too. nt

[lurky]

14. "The enemy within" was a dead givaway.

I guess the old bogeymen are losing their effectiveness -- Time to roll out the Yellow Peril.

[NoodleyAppendage]

22. EXACTLY. I was struck by that key phrase too. Part of the recent push.

Funny how all of these foreign attacks (or at least the reporting of them) coincide with the push by McConnell to bring China-like Net monitoring to the US. This story is pure propaganda, which sadly will be read without critical thinking by about 70% of the populace.

J

[NoodleyAppendage]

23. EXACTLY. I was struck by that key phrase too. Part of the recent push.

Funny how all of these foreign attacks (or at least the reporting of them) coincide with the push by McConnell to bring China-like Net monitoring to the US. This story is pure propaganda, which sadly will be read without critical thinking by about 70% of the populace.

J

[IsItJustMe]

24. They are most likely getting us ready for something they have been doing all along. We will find

it, maybe. With our m$m the way it is though, even that is doubtfull.

[debbierlus]

30. It did come out they were drawing up a plan to access ALL e-mail

[Mithreal]

12. Anyone else get the weird feeling that federal government wants us

to dislike China and that all stories like these are just part of a longterm propaganda campaign to make average Americans suspicious of China. Are we really going to be able to repay our debt to China? I hope China is forgiving. I really believe this story is also about monitoring everything Americans do on the internet.

[Hulk]

16. Have to hand it to China....they are moving fast!

May as well give them the keys to the front door. They are going to own the US before long anyway, with the direction we have been heading for the past 20+ years. BUY STOCK IN CHINA!! Tapping for oil in Costa Rica, hacking into our data bases in the US, holding HUGE debt to the American government. Just a matter of time folks......the sky is falling, the sky is falling!

Don't look up now, but it might just be.

[lisainmilo]

18. Actually and unfortunately , I agree.

Things are changing and changing fast...
Will we be the next third world country?

[frog92969]

21. Perhaps things are about to flip.

Maybe China will be the world's consumers and we will be the slave labor.
Still trying to figure the exact need of these Haliburton mega-camps, could be labor camps.

[bemildred]

17. What a load of horseflop. nt

[Warren Stupidity]

19. Aw fuck it lets just fight the Iranians and the Chinese all at the same time.

How many land wars in asia is too many?

[lynnertic]

27. I think the Japanese know the answer to that question...

[ckramer]

28. My car has oil leak. Damn these chinese hackers!

And I don't have money to fix it.

[Uncle Joe]

31. I typed "The Aspens are turning" the other day on my computer and thirty minutes later

someone delivered a Chinese dinner to my front door. Things that make you go hmmm.

[liam_laddie]

35. Funniest comment so far this year!

Hearty applause...superb, worthy of Steven Wright, George Carlin...

[Uncle Joe]

37. Thank you liam_laddie, I blush from your praise.

:blush: They're two of my favorites.

[rateyes]

32. I say that the US Government now has justification

to cancel its own debt to the Chinese government. We'll be back in the black in no time. (Like that's gonna happen, I know.)

[rateyes]

33. Perhaps they're just hacking into the "Toys R Us" database,

to see if they still have any lead contaminated toys on the store shelves, so that they can buy them back. :shrug:

[Earth_First]

34. So is China the bogeyman in their attempt to monitor and effectively censor the internet?

I'll tell you what, this is going to be a long 365 days...

[Kokonoe]

36. I'm glad our spying does not exist. We would never try that.

[kineneb]

38. Prepare to salute our new Chinese overlords.

They will take us down (at least several notches). They own much of our debt and large chunks of our companies. They are not really fond of the US military mess in the ME; it disrupts their oil supply. I am not at all surprised that they would be interested in hacking our military and industrial (we have any still?) computer systems. They are not stupid.

Notice the report is from SANS Institute, which is a private concern.

Guess I should start learning Mandarin.