Q1 Chapter 10 - From this chapter, in addition to the previous Chapters, we continue to enhance our knowledge and understanding about IG best business practices, and how good data governance can ens

United States is particularly concerned about scenarios involving collaboration between criminal groups (motivated by financial gain) and state adversaries (wanting to advance their national security interests). ‘We’ve already seen indications of states using criminal groups as proxies for attacks. We also know that countries like North Korea are aggressively trying to develop their cyber capabilities,’ she says. ‘The open black market, which already exists in the criminal world, is therefore a big concern. It provides a place for states and criminals to find each other.’

Dozens of countries, companies and organizations, ranging from the US government to the UN and the Olympic movement, have had their computers systematically hacked over the past five years by one country, according to a report by a leading US internet security company. The report, by McAfee, did not openly blame any country but hinted strongly that China was the most likely culprit, a view endorsed by analysts.

China has previously been implicated in a range of alleged incidents of cyber spying – a practice Beijing vehemently denies – including a concerted attack on Google and several attempts to prize secrets from computers at the Foreign Office. But the McAfee report is among the most thorough attempts yet to map the scale and range of such data-theft efforts.

The study traced the spread of one particular spying malware, usually spread by a "phishing" email which, if opened, downloaded a hidden programmed on to the computer network. Through tracing this malware and gaining access to a "command and control" computer server used by the intruders, McAfee identified 72 compromised companies and organizations. Many more had been hacked but could not be identified from the logs.

"After painstaking analysis of the logs, even we were surprised by the enormous diversity of the victim organizations and were taken aback by the audacity of the perpetrators," Of the hacking victims 49 were US-based, among them various arms of federal, state and local government, as well as defense contractors and other industries. There were two targets in the UK, a defense company and a computer security firm, while other governments included those of Taiwan, South Korea, and India. Also found on the logs were records from the United Nations, the International Olympic Committee and two national Olympic committees – one of which was accessed by the hackers for more than two years continuously.

McAfee was at pains not to identify the suspected culprit. However, it did little to disguise its suspicions, noting that the targeting of the Olympic groups, and the sport's anti-doping agency, immediately before and after the 2008 Beijing Games was "particularly intriguing" and pointed to a country being to blame.

China has been accused in the past. After Google came under a so-called "advanced persistent attack" in 2009 which it said originated in China, the US secretary of state, asked Beijing for an explanation. This year William Hague said a "hostile state intelligence agency" – identified by UK sources as China – had penetrated the Foreign Office's internal communications system.

While a high proportion of media attention on cybersecurity focuses on the loss of personal data, such as the recent security breaches at Sony, and the activities of hacking collectives such as LulzSec, analysts say this is often minor when compared with the methodical, industrial-scale attempts to seize commercial and state secrets, presumed to be carried out by many countries, chief among them China. Alperovitch said state-orchestrated hacking was so endemic and ambitious it could reshape the workings of the global economy.

References

Johnson, R. (2011, Jun 13). The Biggest Hacking Attacks Of 2011. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/imf-cyber-attacked-hackers-sony-rsa-lockheed-martin-epsilon-michaels-2011-6?IR=T

Walker, P. (2011, Aug 3). Cyber-hacking: prolonged series of attacks by one country uncovered. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/aug/03/china-cyber-hacking-campaign

Walsh, E. (2011, oct 6). The Cyber Proliferation Threat. Retrieved from https://thediplomat.com/2011/10/the-cyber-proliferation-threat/