A unit of China’s People’s Liberation Army has been tied to a location believed to be the source of “an overwhelming percentage of the attacks on American corporations, organizations and government agencies,” according to a report in the New York Times on Tuesday.
“An unusually detailed 60-page study, to be released Tuesday by Mandiant, an American computer security firm, tracks for the first time individual members of the most sophisticated of the Chinese hacking groups – known to many of its victims in the United States as ‘Comment Crew’ or ‘Shanghai Group’ – to the doorstep of the military unit’s headquarters,” the report says. “The firm was not able to place the hackers inside the 12-story building, but makes a case there is no other plausible explanation for why so many attacks come out of one comparatively small area.”
Over the past year, Global Public Square contributors have looked at a range of cyber issues, from the potential threat posed by Chinese firms to what the U.S. can do to improve its cyber defenses.
“Weak cybersecurity renders America less secure on a global strategic level,” wrote Katrina Timlin, a research assistant at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, on GPS last February. “Around seventy countries are building cyber capabilities for their military or national defense infrastructure. Among the most capable countries are Russia and China, historical competitors with America.”
More from CNN: U.S. firm links China with hacking
“Although they are unlikely to launch a spontaneous cyber attack, it is understandable they are probing our vulnerabilities and testing the limits of cyber espionage. America’s competitors have clear incentives to seek economic and military advantage through these ‘illicit’ means, and America’s inability to properly defend its cyber infrastructure is only facilitating this nefarious behavior.”
How should the U.S. respond?
According to A. Greer Meisels and Mihoko Matsubara, the United States and its allies need to coordinate their response to these threats. “As countries pursue interoperability for the sake of military efficiency, they also face an increase in shared vulnerabilities. Washington should take advantage of its pre-existing alliance network and serve as a hub to synchronize such efforts,” the authors wrote in October. “This requires developing robust, actionable intelligence capabilities that can provide real-time information to decision-makers in the United States, to private companies, and to its allies.”
More from CNN: Have courage to deal with cyber war
But Jennifer Stisa Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society, suggested that in the push to find solutions in the U.S., it’s worth asking whether more legislation is the answer.
“Bringing federal agencies up to par won’t…require new laws. President Obama could implement much of the Cybersecurity Act via executive order,” Granick wrote in August. “Further, government may be able to raise standards for critical infrastructure networks through regulation rather than legislation. In most critical industries, electricity, nuclear power, chemical plants and water safety are already heavily regulated by the government. So why, for example, did NASDAQ get hacked in 2011? When we, or Congress, understand this, we can apply the tool that would improve the situation, whether it’s Securities and Exchange Commission regulation or new laws.”
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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So when the Pentagon tells us that the Chinese are attacking we'll have been primed to believe!
Strange the article says nothing about US and allies cyber attacking other countries.
Stuxnet and Iran for example. That's widely reported to be CIA creation.
Strictly defense though, wasn't it? Albeit pre-emptive,
Thank you matslats, you said it all! This is another classic example by the right-wing news media to scare the public in cahoots with the M.I.C. in Washington!
CNN a right-wing media source, wow you are living in your only little fantasy world. CNN takes whatever is the latest DNC talking points and reports that as the news.
Naive, all of you. Political disagreements will arise. Historically China uses methods short of all out war to achieve it's goals. A threat to disable a few nuclear reactors or poison a regions water supply electronically is the type of leverage China is securing to get the US to back off when South Korea or Taiwan is finally invaded. Whimper about what the military hasn't done when it's too late? I'd rather see you guys point fingers at a successful US intelligence operation when that moment comes.
Wow, if you think CNN is right wing then you must reside just to the left of Stalin on the political spectrum.
Dont post unless you know about the topic.
I guess CNN forgot to state the following form RT.com " Members of the Anonymous movement including alleged ringleader-turned-informant Hector “Sabu” Monsegur may have played a crucial role in helping cybersecurity experts narrow in on the Chinese hackers profiled in a highly touted report released this week."
They misspelled cyber attack. Its GOPT.
Iran's nuclear Ayatollah's represent an extremely real and credible existential threat to the lives of millions of people in Israel and with the bomb they will certainly disrupt world energy flows in a way that will bring suffering and misery to people all over the world, and vastly increase the chances of a regional nuclear holocaust. American foreign policy has many and serious flaws but the reality is that right now Pax-Americana is probably the only thing preventing our global Carnival Triumph from descending into hell.
Your opinion only. Mine is that the US doesn't do cyber-spying like the Chinese do, they don't need to steal secrets for economic gain, or at least nothing useful – there are plenty of American secrets, though. The Chinese hackers are not (may not be) going after Nigeria, or Brazil, or Mexico, they are going after first world secrets, which are found in the first world. Stuxnet is NOT thought to be CIA, it's thought to be Mossad – what would the US gain knocking Iranian centrifuges off? Nothing. What would Israel gain? Another brief extension on their sorry state. Who has more reason? It's a no-brainer. Like I said, your opinion only and it means no more than mine. There is no right/wrong here, and you are certainly no arbitrator, nor in fact is anyone else.
Matslats has the right opinion here, Ian. It was we Americans who started these cyber wars long ago and other countries like China, India and Iran are just now catching up! Where did you get all that mumbo-jumbo you posted above from anyway?
The only kind of communication that cant be hacked is a local hardwired connection. Even that can be tapped if you can get near it. I'm not even sure that's true. My point is that everything we know can be found out and everything we don't that can be will. Our problem is we know what it's like to be the big dog on campus and now were like a little shrimp in an ocean of sharks. If America wants to get back out of living in fear we need the president to stop being a wimp and start handing out threats and making good on them. I know I probably sound like a horrible person and I'm really not passionate about the U.S.of A and the way it works anymore because of the stupid things it does, but if America really wants to stop being a pushover who gets their purse stolen and cries about it. Weve got to take our money back from china and stop handing it over for cheap lead filled dolls and crap.
And that is only half of the story. Because, everybody is hacking everybody else in Cyber space. You don't catch, say, a drone if you cannot hack into the defense systems computers.
And to protect against cyber attack the ultimate in cyber defense has to be developed. And that dream costs.
It is no illusion that Chinese are stronger in "cyber space" than USA. One reason for that is also in "Chinese mindset" as they clearly see Americans as enemies, while Americans not necessarily see Chinese as enemies. We should change the business and political priorities, and put Russia before China in international relations.
Six in one half dozen the other. China=Russia=China
The Chinese do not see you as an enemy. They see you as a typical American kwok zucking kwok zucker who has zucked his uncle's limply kwok one time too many and swallowed one mouthful too much. You have kum ozzing out of your kwok zucking mouth from being fulll already.
Coming to a neighborhood near you!
That's fine and dandy but remember we still owe China over a trillion dollars. They are our lender and we owe them.
And China owes us $750,000,000,000.00 plus interest from World War II. Why aren't we collecting? Britain is.
Good posting, John. How true that is! Without China loaning us their money, our economy would collapse almost overnight!
Not any more. If they get to perpetrate an act of war against us, we get to forgive ourselves of a trillion dollar debt. Sounds fair to me.
I recently returned from living in China for 7 years and right now the Chinese government's anti-American propaganda machine is downright vicious. Imagine, American business transferred 17 TRILLION dollars of direct and indirect investments into China over the past 20 years and lifted it up from being a desperate, poverty stricken basket case (and in the process gutted America), and now they hate us.
Its past time to cut the Chinese off from our markets and open the door to free trade with Europe. Why Why Why are we doing business with a country that views us as The Enemy?
Layne, the only transfer I see is that your uncle had transferred his bodily fluid into your kwok zucking mouth.
Hey, maybe the US should respond to foreign cyberattacks just like they respond to US cyberattacks on them.
The US leads the world by a huge margin when it comes to illegally hacking foreign nations computers.
Get over it folks – this is the world of modern day intelligence techniques, and rest assured, we are at the forefront.
Why not drop a couple of JDAMs on the place know that we know where its located?
USA will just ignore it and continue to indulge in low-cost Chinese labor and imported goods.
As a great nation – that is what it's citizens chose to do regarding concerns about oppression of Tibet.
I expect no less on this issue.
The Chinese must have oppressed you. They must have forced you to zuck their kwok. They must have also forced you to bend over like a dog.
Do you even realize that the incinerators in Europe are waiting for the return of "Trash" like you, kwok head?
It all reminds me of an old "Protection" game: you get attacked first by somebody unknown, then some thugs in expensive suits come to you and suggests their protection. It will be an expensive one this time: because you have been attacked by whole "Chinese Army"! I think I should consider buying some stock in IT companies. Does anybody have any idea who those "lucky" security contractors might be?
True enough, Andrey. These thugs in Washington are always looking for more ways to make money and Chinese fear mongering is one of them. Those "lucky" security contractors stand to make a mint!
if china had lunched a attack you wouldent have even been writing this everybody you now and had ever meet would be gone. every place you ever had seen or been to would have been space dust you should pray to god that you would never see what even a chinese attack would look like. realy pray that usa isent that stupid.
We already fought them stupid they lost severely more than we did read your history we are stronger faster and smarter why cause we have someone from every part of this world in our army others don't I would think about that.
That's the flip side of the coin: Technology is a two-sided sword. These intrusions are a wack-up call for all of us not to expose ourselves too much to cyber technology. Or invent better one to protect ourselves.
Just one word – Scary! Chinese have some scary mentality. And most of us are living in a fool's paradise.
I get it!!
You have no idea. Its far worse then you think.
Deja vu all over again, the govt say Iraq got WMD and is a huge threat to US, the media pick it up and hyping it like crazy. To respond to the "crisis" American believed due to the media coverage, a huge operation got launched which grossly violate civil right of US citizen, a lot of "experts" and companies got lucrative contracts but at the end, US safety is only marginally improved at best.
I guess they will follow TSA example and start patting down everyone who use the internet.
Is China attacking also the implementations of ERP in American companies?
Yes, there is no doubt about that, it is part of the fast globalization of mafias around the world. As part of that mainly a) FICO consultants; b) Finance, Accounting super users, c) government agents were attacked to work for them.
That´s explained the part that an ERP reengineering is needed for American companies in USA to cut the fraud, overspending, lack of system analysis, among others in the US Corporates. The problem is that capitalist companies were converted in communist and socialist Corporates that they want to continue working with minors, paying bribes to top high government employees, not to pay the regular taxes, working with mafias mainly from India, Mexico and China, receiving bail outs, among others.
US citizens have to compete with lower rates and salaries of foreign IT consultants, their rates are so low that US citizen cannot compete with them in USA. The problem is that US corporates need American to rework the integration part of the modules because it was not done scientifically. They need strong architects in deep knowledge in capitalist models to start the ERP reengineering right away.
Part of the solution is to start with the onshoring of IT activities, and fix them in USA. Americans should be proud of Made in America is better, and stop consuming mainly China products in USA. On the other hand, personal security has to increase and weapons should be carried in the ERP businesses because of these China Imperium attacks.
The only confirmed state sanctioned cyber-terrorist attack is the U.S. use of the stuxnet virus against Iran. Sorry but this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
So remove all the identifying telltales from a cruise missle, launch it from a sub in the middle of the night, and blow them the f- up, already. What will they do? Retaliate? And lose trillions in business?
Come on Oscar, please vomit your ignorance here without using the Tea Party lingo. It has no place here.
Countries often prepare for the previous war. Knights ruled the day until someone developed a longbow that could pierce the armor from a distance. Soldiers ruled until someone developed a machine gun that forced them to hide in trenches. At the start of WWII France had prepared the Maginot Line in anticipation of trench warfare, and Germany's bombers & tanks went right around it. Now the US has prepared a massive military that is capable of standing toe to toe against anyone in the world, but how will the country react when we park a carrier near Taiwan to show our strength, and suddenly the power in New York is cut off? Or the water supply to LA is disrupted? How about a billion random bank transfers in the nations major banks? How about most US service members having their bank accounts drained so their families can't pay the bills at home? Think that will cause riots in the street to the point where the President is too distracted to worry about foreign policy? These groups are probing our weaknesses now, while they can at their leisure, and keeping notes so that when something happens they will already have a plan of attack. Our $100 million fighter planes and billion dollar carriers will be our Maginot Line that they simply go around. It's so terribly obvious, but Congress is more worried about keeping their weapons programs funded.
This comment is very good! I think it is something to really think about. I sure hope Uncle Sam is prepared for this possibility.
Wow, what a lot of ignorant comments! Presumably from the same people who don't have up-to-date anti-virus programs on their computers. And who don't know to turn on or off their firewall. Or even what it is.
The Chinese are making huge scale attacks on businesses and organizations that have done them no wrong, and which have broken no laws. The United States is attacking a rogue state's development of nuclear weapons that it has said publically should be used on Israel.
If you don't understand the technology, if you can't discern the difference between breaking the law and upholding it, you should just keep quiet in public forums.
90% of the "merchandise" sold at Walmart stores is crap from China. And yet the Tea Party Patriots flock there when they have a sale on guns, knives and ammo.
Why do you care where other Americans shop at?
Supporting China only puts more Americans out of work.
Humongous.
Get over it folks – China is just playing the US cyber-attack game. I'm so tired of the US hypocrisy all over the world:
"We have nukes, you can't".
"We lead the world in cyberattacks, you can't"
"We bomb whatever country we want whenever we want, you can't"
Grow up US. What goes around, comes around – didn't we learn that on 9/11?
Well said, sly. Thank you.
Exactly!
So what else is new? The US has been cyber-spying on China for decades. Are we really that surprised that China has been spying on us? Good grief!
Before we worry about Chinese cyber attacks, we should worry about the contunuous attempts by the right wing leadership in our government and across the country to undermine their own government to see that our black President fails. In short, we have to worry about the eneny of the state or our own home grown domestic terrorists known as the GOPT first. Not China.
Internal political divisions are used by the Chinese to increase their advantage over the US. The CCP/PRC is a major threat to US national & economic security & interests. All Americans should be concerned. One way to counter the Chinese threat is to increase cyber security but also US consumers can use their economic clout. Stop buying Made in China and we'll decrease our reliance on Chinese goods and reduce the trade deficit.
BREAKING NEWS...BREAKING NEWS...BREAKING NEWS...
Mitch McConnel and the GOPT said their number one goal is to make President Obama and America fail. Cyber attack from within are more dangerous than that from outside.
American corporations and the wealthy "wannabe's" have sold us out to the Chinese because the want to make obscene amounts of wealth by scrambling for cheap Chinese labor and virtually no environmental laws. I hope they lose every cent they ever invested in China, when those monsters finally attack us. US business has endangered every US citizen because of their greed!!
Attention all Tea Party Patriots !!! Procede to nearest bathroom. Stick head in toilet. Now flush.
This and other related articles make it sound like the Chinese are the only ones involved in "cyber spying". In fact, government sanction cyber intelligence (spying) is common practise performed by military intelligence units in many countries including the United States, Canada, Great Britain, etcetera.
It is big enough that we won't do anything about it until it hurts us, badly. And whether that bad hurt is enough to take us down, or cripple us, is nothing but speculation. So, we need make to sure they can only cripple us, whatever access they use. Redundancy, multiplicity and variance.
What is the point of this article? Who gives two hoots if China gets the secret ingredient to the coca-cola recipe or learns that we have a gps satellite where it shouldn't be. This still doesn't give a large news corporation the right to stir up American support for a anti-Chinese political action.
Don't just write an article to hear yourself, give it some solid meaning.
I think you missed the point. US companies & US investors do care if the Chinese Govt is spying on them. The PRC also spies on the US Govt and that endangers US national security. I am sure you would not want the Chinese Govt hacking into your computer, would you?
The U.S. is the most armed country in the world, with 90 guns to every 100 people. This statistic represents those with gun permits–it does not include those with guns that are not licensed. As of 2-21-2013, there are 315,366,068 people in the US. Do the math. Look at how advanced our country is. Now, do believe that China has a Chinese chance in Hell of invading the US? They may give it the ole college try so to say, but succeed? In their dreams. I am a woman who owns a Colt AR15. Am I a dead shot with it? Yes. Would I step up to defend my country? You better believe that I will–in a heartbeat.
Very John Wayne, and just as antiquated. What are you going to do when a cyber attack deletes all records of your bank account? Shoot the ATM machine?
How big it is? en I think it is as big as ONE foot long subway~or maybe tast even as well as subway~~
Come on boy~who will attack the others, at their own home and using a stupid static IP address? it is way too stupid~~I cann't believe the report comes from a professional group of internet security~~it sounds like a military report , which is ask more budgets~~that's it
So what will our "Dear Leader" do about it? NOTHING....
The PRC has been engaged in cyberespionage against the US for over decade. The US Govt had warnings but ignored them for the most part. Now we are slowly waking up to the cyber threat from the PRC. The PRC also engages in hacking & cyber warfare against Tibetan, Uighur, and Chinese dissidents. The PRC is a major threat to US national interests. It is hegemonistic and imperialistic. It wants to the new Middle Kingomd and dominate Asia. Asian nations must unite to stand up to the PRC.
Much of this is industrial espionage. China doesn't want a military confrontation with us, they prefer to win on the economic battlefield. They want the Citizens Against Government Waste ad "Now they work for us" to become a reality.
Gives us an opportunity to see their capabilities.
We are no different. Do you really think that we have no cyber soldiers out there? Do you think that your web experience is not controlled by the government? Try to register the domain newrevolution and see what happens.
First of all when we hack into their systems all we get back is what the chinese stole from everyone else. Do you really think that the chinese can innovate on their own under such restricted conditions! Besides where would china be if it weren't for American technology. They would all still be using rickshaws for transportation. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times "NEVER TRUST A G00K!".
Consider this. Most of the computers here are made with parts from China. Do we know if these components only do what we bought them to do, or do they provide a "back door" to those who designed the circuit firmware? Who checks whether these cards and boards have exploits built in?
"How big is China's cyber threat?"
China is a massive threat to the rest of the world. Period. If you've every been to China you know that if they ever did take the world over that humankind might as well hang it up and let some other species take over. The quality of life there is very poor for most people and any attempt to protest most likely puts you in prison. The communist elite steal whatever land they want from everyone else, and send those that complain to black prisons that are not even part of the official legal machinery there.
Like the US is any better? Let see no real health care, crazies with guns, lobbyist in control of your congress, a useless congress and the media which keeps the masses i.e. sheep ignorant and hateful like yourself..... And that's just the beginning... 16 TRILLION+ national debt and more to come!
China is the next war.
We are all being "played" by the media, left and right. There really are no "truths", just "positions" and "interests". Not so long, historically speaking, after the old Soviet was put to bed, we look to our next "boogy-man" so we can all be herded into following our masters wishes.
USA has the largest and most advanced hacking organization in the whole entire universe, Period. Agree? Every once in awhile, we just have to bring up this bad dude, which's CHINA in the neighborhood, so everyone will scare of him and not do business with him, instead do business with USA.
China will deny it until they are blue in the face, but they are doing it. In fact, about two years ago, it was in the news that they hacked into something really important, and before Chinese officials could get to them, their Cyber Geeks boasted that they were able to hack into any computer system in the world. i.e. they tipped their hand. Their geeks stated that there was literally no system in the world that could defend against their hacks. Immediately after that, there was complete silence from their side, as would be expected. The Geeks were obviously told to shut-up. After that, there have been several reports pointing the finger at them, but they deny it every time. Seriously, would anyone really expect them to admit to it ??? This is obviously of the utmost importance at this time. We should spare no resources to address the issue.
OK so you have traced the problem to one single 12 storey buidling in China. If the PLA was really spying on US using this location they would immediately shut it down and shift their attacks to anohter adress.
If this does not happen, then this is a decoy and they want to be caught.
I really don't think they are stupid enough to be tracebale – it is much more plasuible that they have several levels of decoys and outsource the job to somepne else:
Meantime, the Scare Mongers have their day.
Just because the brutal Chinese Communist Party is helping a few rich, greedy Americans get richer, don't imagine that they like Westerners or are not brainwashing their people about how evil Americans are. Even though on the outside, they smile and shake our hands, and they try to dress and be like us, one would be quite surprised if he or she could read Chinese schoolbooks and learn exactly what the evil Party teaches its children about us. Americans have been mislead by their Government and media into trading with the enemy, and I mean the enemy. The cruel Party has murdered one hundred million of its own people since 1949, imagine what it would do to us given half a chance. This is just my understanding, thank you.
jeff forsythe, the Chinese do not consider you evil at all. They just think you are a typical kwok zucking kwok zucker who loves zucking lama's kwok.
FIRST OF ALL CHINA IS A STUPID COUNTRY , AMEN . HELL TO THE WORLD FULL OF KARMA ARE ALREADY BEEN MADE IT , IT JUST A MATTER OF TIME FOR THIS WORLD TOBE BLOWN APART VERY SOON , AMEN HELL TO THE DOG DUMB ASA HELL KARMA SEEKER , AMEN .
Countries are all doing it to each other. Don't be naive.