Researchers Trace Data Theft to Intruders in China

TORONTO — Turning the tables on a China-based computer espionage gang, Canadian and United States computer security researchers have monitored a spying operation for the past eight months, observing while the intruders pilfered classified and restricted documents from the highest levels of the Indian Defense Ministry.

Click here to read the full New York Times story.

4 Takeaways from the ‘Kneber Botnet’ Cyber Attack

From the AtlanticWire:

A day after we highlighted America’s cyber-security threats, a new hacker plot has been discovered. Cyber criminals from Europe and China have infiltrated around 75,000 computers at companies and government agencies, according to NetWitness, a computer-security company. The virus used is called “Kneber” and it has gained access to Facebook, Yahoo, Hotmail, and online banking accounts.

Read the full article here.

Senators Warned of Terrorist Attack on U.S. by July

WASHINGTON — America’s top intelligence official told lawmakers on Tuesday that Al Qaeda and its affiliates had made it a high priority to attempt a large-scale attack on American soil within the next six months.

The assessment by Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, was much starker than his view last year, when he emphasized the considerable progress in the campaign to debilitate Al Qaeda and said that the global economic meltdown, rather than the prospect of a major terrorist attack, was the “primary near-term security concern of the United States.”

Read the full New York Times article here.

Hacking for Fun and Profit in China’s Underworld

CHANGSHA, China — With a few quick keystrokes, a computer hacker who goes by the code name Majia calls up a screen displaying his latest victims.

“Here’s a list of the people who’ve been infected with my Trojan horse,” he says, working from a dingy apartment on the outskirts of this city in central China. “They don’t even know what’s happened.”

Read the full New York Times article here.

Survey of Executives Finds a Growing Fear of Cyberattacks

A survey of 600 computing and computer-security executives in 14 countries suggests that attacks on the Internet pose a growing threat to the energy and communication systems that underlie modern society.

The findings, issued Thursday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the computer-security company McAfee, echoed alarms raised this month by Google after it experienced a wave of cyberattacks.

Read the full New York Times article here.

In Digital Combat, U.S. Finds No Easy Deterrent

On a Monday morning earlier this month, top Pentagon leaders gathered to simulate how they would respond to a sophisticated cyberattack aimed at paralyzing the nation’s power grids, its communications systems or its financial networks.

The results were dispiriting. The enemy had all the advantages: stealth, anonymity and unpredictability. No one could pinpoint the country from which the attack came, so there was no effective way to deter further damage by threatening retaliation. What’s more, the military commanders noted that they even lacked the legal authority to respond — especially because it was never clear if the attack was an act of vandalism, an attempt at commercial theft or a state-sponsored effort to cripple the United States, perhaps as a prelude to a conventional war.

Read the full New York Times article here.

Malware research group spins off from Harvard

A research organization that tries to warn computer users about programs that do sneaky things on their computers has spun off from Harvard University.

StopBadware says it will operate as a standalone nonprofit with funding from Google Inc., eBay Inc.’s PayPal and Mozilla, which makes the Firefox Web browser. It was initially set up as part of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

To read the entire AP article, click here.

Companies Fight Endless War Against Computer Attacks

The recent computer attacks on the mighty Google left every corporate network in the world looking a little less safe.

Google’s confrontation with China — over government censorship in general and specific attacks on its systems — is an exceptional case, of course, extending to human rights and international politics as well as high-tech spying. But the intrusion into Google’s computers and related attacks from within China on some 30 other companies point to the rising sophistication of such assaults and the vulnerability of even the best defenses, security experts say.

Read more here.

Google, Citing Attack, Threatens to Exit China

In a New York Times article out yesterday, Andrew Jacobs highlights the struggle between Google and China as a result of sophisticated cyber attacks which Google believes originated in China.  As a result, Google has threatened to shut down operations in China.  Read the full article here.

Cyber Attacks a Reality for Many; Shortage of Talent to Stop Attacks

One million Massachusetts residents – or 1 in 6 people – have had their credit card numbers, medical records, or other personal information leaked or stolen over the past two years, according to records provided by the state. Click here to read a Boston Globe article about the problem.

Meanwhile, firms and government agencies across the country are struggling to find enough experts to prevent these attacks from happening.  Click here to read about the government’s struggles in the Washington Post.  Another article in the New York Times covers the issue as well.