A China-based network stole Indian military secrets, hacked the Dalai Lama’s office and computers around the world in an elaborate cyber espionage scheme, Canadian researchers said Tuesday.
Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab said they documented a “complex ecosystem of cyber-espionage that systematically compromised government, business, academic and other computer networks in India, the offices of the Dalai Lama, the UN and several other countries.”
Data stolen from dozens of hacked computers mostly in India contained sensitive information about missile systems and artillery designs and Sino-Indian relations, they said in a report titled Shadows in the Cloud.
Personal, financial and business information of citizens from 31 countries was accessed, including from Canadian visa applications.
“We recovered one document that appears to be an encrypted diplomatic correspondence, two documents classified as ‘SECRET,’ six as ‘RESTRICTED’ and five as ‘CONFIDENTIAL,’” the researchers said.
At a press conference, researcher Greg Walton said these were “very targeted and deliberate attacks.”
“They suggest to us a shift is occurring from criminal and industrial espionage in cyberspace to a possibility of political espionage, whether that is directed by government or not,” he said.
Walton explained the attacks “were specifically crafted to hit individuals, usually in positions of power.”
He said state spies, or criminal groups aiming to sell information to governments are likely involved. “We believe a market has emerged for this,” he said.
The researchers traced the attacks to southern China, “and to known entities within the criminal underground of the PRC [People’s Republic of China].”
At one point, they even tracked down and chatted online with an unidentified suspect.
China denied involvement in the attacks cited in the Citizen Lab report, which comes just weeks after Google effectively shut down its China search engine over censorship and cyber-attacks.
“Some reports have, from time to time, been heard of insinuating or criticizing the Chinese government ... I have no idea what evidence they have or what motives lie behind,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu (姜瑜) said.
The report highlighted what it said was “an obvious correlation to be drawn between the victims, the nature of the documents stolen, and the strategic interests of the Chinese state.”
Recovered files detailed India’s security situation in Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura states, India’s international relations with West Africa, Russia and the Middle East, and concerned Naxalite and Maoist “extremists.”
One file contained personal information on a member of India’s Directorate General of Military Intelligence. About 1,500 letters sent from the Dalai Lama’s office in 2009 were also recovered.
The researchers said the attacks would start with the opening of an attachment in an email seemingly sent by a familiar person, infecting computers.
The hackers would then misuse services such as Twitter, Google Groups, Blogspot and Yahoo Mail to send “new malicious binaries to compromised computers” ordering them to transfer documents to a “drop zone.”
The Canadian researchers traced the cyber-attacks to servers in Chengdu, China, but could not identify the culprits. Chengdu is home to the Chinese military’s technical reconnaissance bureaus tasked with signals intelligence collection.
Several infected computers were also found to be “checking in” with a server in nearby Chongqing, China, where organized crime groups reportedly operate online.
“We have no evidence in this report of the involvement of the People’s Republic of China or any other government in the Shadow network ... or that the attackers were directed in some manner — either by sub-contract or privateering — by agents of the Chinese state,” the report concluded.
“But an important question to be entertained is whether the PRC will take action to shut the Shadow network down,” the report said.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
‘REALLY PROUD’: Nvidia would not be possible without Taiwan, Huang said, adding that TSMC would be increasing its capacity by 100 percent Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday praised and lightly cajoled his major Taiwanese suppliers to produce more to help power strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI), capping a visit to the country of his birth, where he has been mobbed by adoring fans at every step. Speaking at an impromptu press conference in the rain outside a Taipei restaurant, where he had hosted suppliers for a “trillion-dollar dinner,” named after the market capitalization of those firms attending, Huang said this would be another good year for business. “TSMC needs to work very hard this year because I need a lot
RSS