[ISN] China cyber attacks against Google pure fabrication

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:21:52 -0600 (CST)
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90883/6901058.html

People's Daily Online
Xinhua
February 24, 2010

The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and some 
other newspapers have published articles indicating that cyber attacks 
targeting Google and several other U.S. companies were from China. Such 
allegations are arbitrary and biased.

These articles take as evidence that hackers' IP addresses could be 
traced back to two schools in China. However, it is common sense that 
hackers can attack by hijacking computers from anywhere in the world. 
This fact also explains why hackers are hard to be tracked down.

Computers in China are easy to be hijacked by hackers as internet 
security technology and services are still underdeveloped in China. The 
majority of Chinese internet users also lack security awareness and 
adequate protection measures.

The hackers' IP addresses could by no means vindicate the newspapers' 
allegations that the attacks were carried out by Chinese citizens or 
from within China.

Certain newspapers went even further by indicating that the Chinese 
government and the military might have supported those cyber attacks.

The New York Times says the Lanxiang vocational school in eastern 
Shandong province, one of the schools from which the cyber attacks were 
said to originate, has military support. Another school, the Shanghai 
Jiaotong University, "has received financing from a high-level 
government science and technology project."

The New York Times went to great lengths to mention that "graduates of 
the (Lanxiang) school's computer science department are recruited by the 
local military garrison each year."

The paper, however, did not care to tell its readers that a school in 
China does not need to have any special relationship with the military 
to have its graduates in uniform. It is also true in the United States, 
where the New York Times is based.

China's attitude toward cyber attacks has been unequivocal and has 
adopted laws against such crimes, as China is one of the countries that 
bear the brunt of cyber attacks. It is way far-fetched to say that cyber 
attacks -- even if they were to originate from China or were to be 
carried out by Chinese citizens -- would have the support of the Chinese 
government.

The U.S. government, on the other hand, takes a dubious attitude toward 
cyber attacks.

According to media reports, the U.S. Homeland Security and Defense 
departments have both openly recruited hackers.

People with a "blackhat perspective" and know how to "do threat 
modelling" are the best choices, said Philip Reitinger, Department of 
Homeland Security deputy undersecretary, at an information security 
conference last October.

Cyber crimes could cause immense losses for individuals, enterprises and 
nation-states. Effective supervision and closer international 
cooperation are ways to boost cyber security. Finger pointing is not.


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Received on Tue Feb 23 2010 - 22:21:52 PST

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