Tag: China

APT1: Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units

Mandiant has issued a new report focused on the most prolific cyber espionage group Mandiant tracks: APT1. This single organization has conducted a cyber espionage campaign against a broad range of victims since at least 2006. See also below a New York Times article re this Chinese cyber unit attacks on US companies and infrastructure and how they got […]

Theft is still the biggest problem for US companies in China

From The Economist: “If the technology matters, then don’t bring it to China as it will get stolen.” ON JANUARY 5th, in a night raid, a gang of criminals broke into a factory near Shanghai owned by Mercury Cable, an American manufacturer of high-voltage equipment. The thieves took not only raw materials but machinery from […]

Huawei probed for security, espionage risk

CBS 60 Minutes: If you’re concerned about the decline of American economic power and the rise of China, then there is no better case study than Huawei. Chances are you’ve never heard of this Chinese technology giant, but in the space of 25 years it’s become the largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment in the world; […]

Hacking humans is highly effective way to access government and corporate networks

Click for larger graphic “Everybody has their trigger. A good social engineer will find that trigger.”  — Bruce M. Snell, director of technical marketing at McAfee Security Systems National Security community government and corporate networks being targeted. From the Washington Post’s series “Zero Day: The Threat in Cyberspace“– In cyberattacks, hacking humans is highly effective […]

Insider Threat: Chicago engineer arrested for stealing trade secrets

Former CME Group Software Engineer Pleads Guilty to Stealing Globex Computer Trade Secrets While Planning to Improve Electronic Trading in China (FBI, 19 Sept 12) CHICAGO—A former senior software engineer for Chicago-based CME Group Inc. pleaded guilty today to theft of trade secrets for stealing computer source code and other proprietary information while at the […]

Travel “Electronically Naked” to China

“Everybody knows that if you are doing business in China, in the 21st century, you don’t bring anything with you. That’s ‘Business 101’ — at least it should be.” — Jacob Olcott, a cybersecurity expert at Good Harbor Consulting From the New York Times: When Kenneth G. Lieberthal, a China expert at the Brookings Institution, […]

China’s Cyber Thievery Is National Policy—And Must Be Challenged

An Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal written by Mike McConnell, Michael Chertoff and William Lynn Mr. McConnell, a retired Navy vice admiral and former director of the National Security Agency (1992-96) and director of national intelligence (2007-09), is vice chairman of Booz Allen Hamilton. Mr. Chertoff, a former secretary of homeland security (2005-09), is […]

FBI Director Says Cyberthreat Will Surpass Threat From Terrorists

From ABC News: Threats from cyber-espionage, computer crime, and attacks on critical infrastructure will surpass terrorism as the number one threat facing the United States, FBI Director Robert Mueller testified today. Mueller and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, addressing the annual Worldwide Threat hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, cited their concerns about […]

Malicious Software Attacks Security Cards Used by Pentagon

From the New York Times: Chinese hackers have deployed a new cyber weapon that is aimed at the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and potentially a number of other United States government agencies and businesses, security researchers say. Researchers at AlienVault, a Campbell, Calif., security company, said on Thursday that […]

Chinese hacker attacks

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article about Chinese cyber spying (U.S. Homes In on China Spying). According to the article, the US has been able to identify the groups in China responsible for cyber attacks, and that these groups are sponsored by the People’s Liberation Army. Two weeks ago US officials confronted their Chinese […]

China’s Spies Are Catching Up

A recent op-ed in the New York Times by intelligence author and historian David Wise whose most recent book is the highly recommended “Tiger Trap: America’s Secret Spy War with China.”   IN 1995, a middle-aged Chinese man walked into a C.I.A. station in Southeast Asia and offered up a trove of secret Chinese documents. Among […]

China’s non-government economic espionage against US companies

From The Diplomat, 11 December 2011: With each week seeming to bring with it a new example of a cyber attack launched from China, the issue has in many minds become inextricably linked with the Chinese government. And with China’s state-owned firms dominating the country’s economic landscape – and with Beijing’s apparent willingness to protect […]

China #1 Country for ‘Sexpionage’

Brian McAdam said countries have been using sex to gather intel for over 1,000 years, and it hasn’t slowed a bit. “Many countries are still carrying on sexpionage, and the number one country is China.” This statement was made by a former Canadian diplomat at a recent security conference in Canada about defending against espionage. Attendees […]

Losses from intellectual property espionage: a trillion dollars a year

NPR published a recent article called, “China’s Cyber Threat A High-Stakes Spy Game.” Here are some interesting points: How to travel to China: “I first of all get a loaner laptop. And the USB that I bring, I clean digitally before I bring it, so it’s totally blank,” Lieberthal says. Lieberthal then disconnects the Wi-Fi and […]

Trusted insider charged with corporate espionage

An local ABC TV news station in Chicago is reporting on a recent case of 2009 Cornell University graduate Yihao Ben Pu, a 24-year-old man holding both a US and Chinese passport who “was once a trusted technology employee at Citadel Investments, once of the world’s largest hedge fund managers. Pu is charged with attempting to […]

Chinese National Pleads Guilty to Economic Espionage

From ABC News, 18 Oct 2011: A Chinese national has pleaded guilty to economic espionage for providing trade secrets from agricultural firms Dow and Cargill to the Chinese government. Kexue Huang, pleaded guilty to one charge of economic espionage before a federal judge in Indiana, admitting that while he worked at Dow AgroSciences LLC and […]