U of T Team Tracks China-Based Cyber Spies
A vast electronic spying operation has infiltrated computers and has stolen documents from hundreds of government and private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, Canadian researchers have concluded.
In their report, the researchers said the system was being controlled from computers based almost exclusively in China, but they could not say conclusively that the Chinese government was involved.
The office of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader whom China regularly denounces, asked researchers at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies to examine its computers for signs of malicious software, or malware.
Their sleuthing opened a window into a broader operation that, in less than two years, has infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including many belonging to embassies, foreign ministries and other government offices, as well as the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan exile centres in India, Brussels, London and New York.
The researchers, who have a record of detecting computer espionage, said they believed that in addition to spying on the Dalai Lama, the system, which they called GhostNet, was focused on the governments of South Asian and Southeast Asian countries.
Intelligence analysts say many governments, including those of China, Russia and the United States, and other parties use sophisticated computer programs to covertly gather information.
Still going strong, the operation continues to invade and monitor more than a dozen new computers a week, the researchers said.
They found a NATO computer was monitored by the spies for half a day and computers of the Indian embassy in Washington were infiltrated.
The malware is remarkable both for its sweep – in computer jargon, it has not been merely “phishing” for random consumers’ information, but “whaling” for particular important targets – and for its Big Brother-style capacities.
It can, for example, turn on the camera and audio-recording functions of an infected computer, enabling monitors to see and hear what goes on in a room…
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Posted by John Malloy
on Mar 29 2009. Filed under International.
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All I can say is, thank God for Canadians.
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