China-based campaign breached satellite, defense companies: Symantec
reuters.com
reuters.com
In theory? This type of reporting is concerning. Surely these reporters (as well as Symantec) ought to know that these type of attacks in theory could leave a true IP trail, but probably not.
There might be other signs that this is a Chinese operation, but IP addresses is not good proof.
Surely these reporters ought to know
It doesn’t help that much of China’s economy is state owned, so even someone doing some espionage for a state owned enterprise would be rightfully called state sponsored.
- Chinese IP address
- IP address that links back to something China
- IP range that belongs to a Chinese cloud provider
- Chinese hacker group (admittedly most of them are reallocated in south east asia)
- botnet located in mainland China
- Government sponsored action
There are so many articles directly jumping into conclusion of the last type.
2. There is history of the Chinese government using its hackers to attack projects and companies it dislikes (see Github DDoS for a high-profile recent example).
3. The US intelligence community has stated that in many cases, the Chinese government is behind attacks. I might distrust the US intelligence community, but this is not something they need to lie about.
4. When Obama and Xi agreed that the US and China would stop infiltrating each other's networks, the breaches stopped.
There is one more thing I almost forgot to mention. The point you made is actually more applicable to Russia. Over the past decade, the Russian government has taken the approach of allowing hackers on Russian soil to operate more or less without any legal consequence so long as their attacks do not target Russian entities. When Putin talks about "patriotic individuals" being behind the hacks on the DNC, I believe him. That does not mean he (or the people arouhd him doing his bidding) was not privy to what was going on or that those patriotic individuals did not receive suggestions on what a good target and a good strategy might be.
I dont think this is technically possible.
Or you are assuming vastly more advanced technologies possessed by Chinese government.
From what we know from Chinese tech company and track record, I doubt this is true.
> 2. ... (see Github DDoS for a high-profile recent example).
Links?
> 3. The US intelligence community has stated that in many cases, the Chinese government is behind attacks. I might distrust the US intelligence community, but this is not something they need to lie about.
They have all the benefit to lie about it:
- Create fear for adversaries. It used to be USSR, now its CCP.
- Assume the moral high-ground for their own surveillance or espionage activities, both domestically and internationally.
- Setup the stage for error-increasing budget for their long-term survivability.
- Cover up their incompetency of guarding national secrets (the adversary is so strong that our defense is not sufficient)
These are just some random possibilities, insiders can give probably much more.
> 4. When Obama and Xi agreed that the US and China would stop infiltrating each other's networks, the breaches stopped.
Links?
> Or you are assuming vastly more advanced technologies possessed by Chinese government.
> From what we know from Chinese tech company and track record, I doubt this is true.
It is not technically feasible, but legal consequences serve as sufficient deterrent. Not many people in the US would carry similar activities. It helps that just about all Chinese corporations are really state enterprises. It looked like state intervention might eventually disappear while Hu was in power, but under Xi, the CCP has gotten much more involved. No Chinese corporation will continue to steal US intellectual property if the party instructs them not to.
As for technical feasibility, if any country has the capability to detect those intrusions, it's China. All internet traffic in China passes through a government filter, and you're only allowed to move encrypted data if you're small fish and the CCP doesn't feel at all concerned about what you're doing. So they can monitor internet traffic better than any other state.
The hacks you hear about are not super advanced wizardry. It's mundane script kiddie stuff but with hundreds if not thousands of people behind it dedicating their full day to it. Our networks are full of security holes.
> They have all the benefit to lie about it: [...]
I concede those are pretty good reasons, but they would unravel sooner or later if there were no truth to them. It is true that this creates fear, that the US is trying to maintain high ground, that this keeps the IC budget growing. But that does not mean China is not hacking into American businesses. I assure you that China would have been much more indignant in fighting the charge if there were no substance to the IC claims.
What I would like you to consider is this: why would China not steal US secrets? Their economy is modernising, and this is exactly the kind of thing they need to speed that modernisation. This is not unique to China, by the way. Every young economy breaks the rules before it joins "The First World". See China's fight to keep its classification as a developing market, their currency manipulation, and how China is setting up shop in any place they can to avoid tariffs, quotas and other import restrictions. Hacking into American (and Canadian and European) businesses is not a wild suggestion -- what would be mysterious is China not hacking Western businesses.
> Links?
It's quite easy to find the stuff I mentioned earlier using a search engine.
If you make the claims, it's on you to provide the proof, not on us to go out and search and find or not find it.
Yes, surely if you would spend billions to fight a imaginary enemy whos people have to wait in line for toilet paper, that would be something you would remember.
Man, those people in the Security Community are so incompetent, they trashed there own paper-potemkin-advesary (russia) by accident and now have to make up a new one.
Not even congress would buy that more Hightech is necessary to fight the taliban.
Best would be, if the US accepted that there wil always be some ridiculous spending on "imagined advesaries" and choose the advesaries more by the potential tech outcome.
Im pretty sure, those Antarcticans are plotting to conquer the Asteroid belt - building energy collecting deathrays and the evil Europeans are trying to establish underwater colonys on europa. Death to Antarctica!
Of course it is, if the reporting entity is politically motivated at all.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17349519
As Dang noted, it's not unusual at all.