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. ________________________________________ Did a friend send you this? From now on, be the first to find out! Subscribe to InfoSec News http://www.infosecnews.orgReceived on Tue Feb 02 2010 - 01:18:51 PST
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