Categories: SecurityWorkspace

China Bites Back And Links US to Cyber-Attacks

China says US hackers are among the quarter of a million foreign cyber-attacks it suffered last year. The report from China’s cyber-security watchdog claims China was attacked nearly half a million times last year, with half of those coming from abroad.

Around 75,000 attacks originated from American IP addresses, reports the Xinhua news agency. Forty thousand attacks originated in India and most were Trojan horses.

This is a distinct role reversal after years of reports linking China with hacks of Western organisations, including some military and security outfits.

Reboot on the other foot

In a restrained manner, Zhou Yonglin, the head of China’s cyber-security watchdog, did not indulge in finger pointing, as such. He told Xinhua: “We cannot say for certain that the hackers were located abroad simply because their Internet Protocol addresses (IPs) were located in other countries. Likewise, we cannot say that ‘Chinese’ hackers are actually in China simply because their IPs are located in China.”

He also said the volume of attacks faced by China makes it among the world’s most attacked countries. A reported 10 percent of the country’s 45,000 government websites were targeted last year, an increase of 67.6 percent.

It was reported in July that China had almost half its websites purged in a year.  A million websites were shutdown in 2010 due to censorship, according to analysts; or for legal infractions and economic trouble, according to the government. Statistics from the China Internet Network Information Centre place China at the top of the Internet population charts with 485million by this June. The statistics also reportedly shows an annual growth of 10 percent.

The finger has been pointed at China over attacks on Google’s Gmail email service, the RSA Security breach and a huge five-year long cyber-attack on the US and UN, among others.

David Jamieson

View Comments

  • Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. When someone goes for the Money Shot like this [hacking of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange], it looks like a nation state to me. Maybe a message for ”Operation Shady RAT.”. Call this a shot across the bow China. Good Cyber Shot U.S.

    Seems like the McAfee is getting in the U.S. viewfinder.In a letter to Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research for McAfee and author of the report, Bono Mack requested a briefing with his research team and asked how the government and private sector could more effectively mitigate data breaches. Representative Mary Bono Mack, chairman of the House Commerce subcommittee with jurisdiction over cybersecurity, said she was alarmed by the report on a slew of cyber attacks that McAfee has dubbed “Operation Shady RAT.”Operation Shady RAT is an eye sour for the U.S government and China now is telling us that we should decrease our and reduce social programs. China is telling us how to be more financially prudent. Well I think someone in high places just kicked China in the cyber financial teeth….
    gatoMalo_at_uscyberlabs_dot_com

    http://Uscyberlabs.com/blog/

    http://ChinaCyberWarfare.wordpress.com

    http://hacktivistblog.wordpress.com/

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