Thread: Cyber Arms Race

China defense website gets two million hack attacks

Agence France-Presse | 11/18/2009 3:04 PM

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BEIJING - The website of China's defense ministry has been hacked more than two million times since it was launched three months ago, state media said Wednesday.

"From the first day the national defense ministry website went online, it received a large volume of uninterrupted attacks," Ji Guilin, the editor-in-chief of the website told the People's Daily in an interview.

"In the first month of operations there were more than 2.3 million hack attacks."

Ji did not say whether the attacks were launched from inside or outside China, but the assaults were largely ineffective due to website security and safeguard measures, he said.

The attacks either tried to infiltrate the website in search of military secrets, or sought to disrupt the website operations, he added.

The ministry launched the website -- including an English version -- on August 20 as part of a charm offensive aimed at countering foreign fears about China's robust military modernization efforts.

The site includes news reports, official photos and videos, facts and figures about the military, and explanations of the country's national defense policies. China's Great Wall features in the logo.

Ji said that in the first three months of operations, the website received 1.25 billion hits, with up to 40 percent of them coming from Beijing and the provinces of Guangdong and Jiangsu.

Hits on the English version of the website mostly came from the United States, Australia and Britain, he said, while US web users logged the most overseas hits on the Chinese-language site.

The ministry earlier said the website was designed to "let the outside world have a better perception of China's national defense policy" and promote the army's modernization drive.

China has roughly doubled its military budget since 2006, according to official government figures that some overseas analysts say vastly downplay what Beijing actually spends.

China has the world's largest military, with 2.3 million troops.

The Pentagon in recent years has raised concerns about China's development of cruise and ballistic missiles, its 2007 test of a satellite-striking weapon, an apparent rise in cyber-espionage by China's military and other issues.

China defense website gets two million hack attacks | ABS-CBN News Online Beta

kettle, meet pot.

LOL

Attacks against PRC websites are not well documented.

We're watching those commies...

Cyber Warriors-Oct. 29, 2007

Good to find India and Pakistan missing in the list.

Major,

"Good to find India and Pakistan missing in the list."

You infer, sir.

More accurate would be a list of whom we AREN'T watching.

This site here was, without question, attacked last Christmas and suffered for some many days.

Originally Posted by S-2

Major,

"Good to find India and Pakistan missing in the list."

You infer, sir.

More accurate would be a list of whom we AREN'T watching.

This site here was, without question, attacked last Christmas and suffered for some many days.

Concur Captain.
I was being sarcastic. Our two countries don't miss out any opportunities
to hit each other with whatever tools they get and cyber war is the easiest
one at hand.

Cyber attacks occur frequently but not many are reported.

Cyber breaches are a closely kept secret

24 Nov WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cybercriminals regularly breach computer security systems, stealing millions of dollars and credit card numbers in cases that companies keep secret, said the FBI's top Internet crimes investigator on Tuesday.

For every break-in like the highly publicized attacks against TJX Co (TJX.N) and Heartland Payment (HPY.N), where hacker rings stole millions of credit card numbers, there are many more that never make the news. .....

Companies that are victims of cybercrime are reluctant to come forward out of fear the publicity will hurt their reputations, scare away customers and hurt profits. Sometimes they don't report the crimes to the FBI at all. In other cases they wait so long that it is tough to track down evidence. ....

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By KWANG-TAE KIM, Associated Press Writer Kwang-tae Kim, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 37 mins ago

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea's military said Friday it was investigating a hacking attack that netted secret defense plans with the United States and may have been carried out by North Korea.

The suspected hacking occurred late last month when a South Korean officer failed to remove a USB device when he switched a military computer from a restricted-access intranet to the Internet, Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said.

The USB device contained a summary of plans for military operations by South Korean and U.S. troops in case of war on the Korean peninsula. Won said the stolen document was not a full text of the operational plans, but an 11-page file used to brief military officials. He said it did not contain critical information.

Won said authorities have not ruled out the possibility that Pyongyang may have been involved in the hacking attack by using a Chinese IP address — the Web equivalent of a street address or phone number.

The Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported, citing the January edition of its sister magazine Monthly Chosun, that hackers used a Chinese IP address and that North Korea is suspected of involvement. The Monthly Chosun cited South Korea's National Intelligence Service and Defense Security Command.

Yonhap news agency also reported the hackers used a Chinese IP address. It said the North's involvement was not immediately confirmed, also citing military officials it did not identify.

Officials at the NIS — South Korea's main spy agency — were not immediately available for comment.

The U.S. stations 28,500 troops in South Korea to deter any potential North Korean aggression. The two Koreas have remained technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

"As a matter of policy, we do not comment on operational planning or intelligence matters, nor would we confirm details pertaining to any security investigation," said David Oten, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Seoul.

The latest case came months after hackers launched high-profile cyberattacks that caused Web outages on prominent government-run sites in the U.S. and South Korea. Affected sites include those of the White House and the South's presidential Blue House.

The IP address that triggered the Web attacks in July was traced back to North Korea's Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, the chief of South Korean's main spy agency reportedly told lawmakers, noting the ministry leased the IP address from China. The spy agency declined to confirm those reports at the time.

South Korean media reported at the time that North Korea runs an Internet warfare unit that tries to hack into U.S. and South Korean military networks to gather confidential information and disrupt service, and the regime has between 500 and 1,000 hacking specialists.

North Korea, one of the world's most secretive countries, is believed to have a keen interest in information technology, while tightly controlling access for ordinary citizens.

__

Associated Press writer Kelly Olsen contributed to this report.

Apparently the 'Iranian Cyber Army' hacked Twitter

You can even email them