[ISN] Cyber Spies Hacked into the DFA

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 03:18:51 -0600 (CST)
http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/component/content/article/86-special-reports/10630-cyber-spies-have-hacked-into-dfa

The Manila Times
31 January 2010 

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) was attacked by a cyber spy 
network.

DFA officials admitted that it was taking these reports seriously. The 
cyber attack on DFA was reported by the Toronto based Information 
Welfare Monitor.

The Philippines is one of the 103 countries where classified documents 
from government and private organizations, including the computers of 
the Dalai Lama and Tibetan exiles, have been hacked into, said IWM.

IWM is composed of researchers from Ottawa-based think tank SecDev Group 
and University of Toronto's Munk Center for International Studies.

The Canadian researchers detected a cyber espionage network involving 
more than 1,295 compromised computers from the ministries of foreign 
affairs of the Philippines, Iran, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Brunei, 
Barbados and Bhutan.

The researchers also discovered hacked systems in the embassies of 
India, South Korea, Indonesia, Romania, Cyprus, Malta, Thailand, Taiwan, 
Portugal, Germany and Pakistan.

The USA is also being attacked. And these attacks are proliferating, 
according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) report.

The FBI report lays out the identifiable attacks originating from China 
just on the Defense Department computers; they increased from 44,000 in 
2007 to 55,000 in 2008, and topped 90,000 last year.

The Chinese hackers are not after credit card numbers or bank accounts 
or looking to steal private identities. They are hunting for 
information.

Although the barrage of attacks may at times appear random, the FBI 
report concludes that it is part of a strategy to fully flush out US 
military telecommunications and to better understand - and to attempt to 
intercept-intelligence being gathered by American spy agencies, 
particularly the National Security Agency.


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Received on Tue Feb 02 2010 - 01:18:51 PST

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