Michael Evans, Defence Editor
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China leads the list of countries hacking into government computers that contain Britain’s military and foreign policy secrets, Whitehall sources said yesterday.
The emergence of Beijing as one of the most hostile state hackers has been highlighted in the United States this week, with allegations that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army tried to extract secrets from a computer in the Pentagon office of Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary.
President Bush suggested that he intended to confront China directly over the claims that it has been trying to hack into Pentagon and other US government computers. Mr Bush hinted that he was prepared to risk a diplomatic rift by raising the sensitive issue with President Hu Jintao when the pair meet in Sydney today at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit.
One Whitehall source said that China was switching increasingly from “old-fashioned espionage” techniques to electronic hacking. The source said: “China is engaged in hostile intelligence activities, and instead of using the old-fashioned methods [recruiting agents and stealing blueprints], they are focusing on electronic means to hack into systems to discover Britain’s defence and foreign policy secrets, and they are technologically pretty advanced and adept at it.”
Another official said that the first warning about state-sponsored hacking was circulated around Whitehall two years ago. “China was not named but the hacking was believed to have come from there,” the official said.
MI5 has told the Government that at least 20 foreign intelligence services were operating to some degree against British interests, and that China and Russia were of greatest concern.
Advice on how to counter the Chinese hackers is provided by the Centre for the Protection of the National In-frastructure (CPNI), which is answerable to Jonathan Evans, the director-general of MI5.
All Ministry of Defence and Foreign and Commonwealth Office computers that contain sensitive material have special firewalls and antivirus software. However, CPNI has cautioned Whitehall that the rapid growth of wireless technology has raised the threat posed by hackers. “A key implication of this unprecedented wireless connectivity is that attackers can reach you at all times,” the CPNI says on its website.
In Sydney, Mr Bush said that he was aware that “a lot of our systems are vulnerable to cyber attack from a variety of places”. He said: “In terms of whether or not I’ll bring this up to countries . . . from which there may have been an attack, I may.” He then went on to talk about America’s “complex relationship” with China.
This week Beijing denied launching cyber attacks against the Pentagon. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that there had been “wild allegations” against China, reflecting a “Cold War mentality”.
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Aggressively and relentlessly hack and disrupt China's sensitive military, industrial, and commercial computers and expose and circulate the secrets that they contain among the UK and US's intelligence officials is the obvious response, and as another contributor has written, take the Western countries' sensitive computers off any network even if this means going back to old-fashioned systems of filing and securing paper records and documents. How can it be that countries such as the US and UK with all their experience in security and counterespionage are just complaining and only very ineffectively responding to China's hostile intrusions into their cyberspace? Clearly, the UK and US should thoroughly secure their sensitive information and return the serve tenfold. What else can they do? Naively and absurdly 'believe' disingenous Chinese denials of wrongdoing? How foolishly feeble that would be.
Hack Back, Canberra, Australia
Remember Winston S. Churchill's wise words during World War II: "The truth is so precious that it must be protected by a bodyguard of lies." Why can't the UK sites pick up attacks originating in China and direct them a false site or sites where all kinds of disinformation could be stored for the perusal of Chinese hackers? China is a hostile state to the West, and always will be. The Chinese are already engaging in low-level aggression against the west, and have been for decades, and the West must respond. Indeed, the West should be more aggressive in dealing with China to check Chinese ambitions. The Chinese will want war when they feel strong enough to win, the objective is to force them see that they can't win and that their megalomaniacal ambitions are futile.
Hack Back, Canberra, Australia
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck . . . it must be a puppy.
That is what the Chinese would like us to believe. But we know the truth despite the propaganda campaign even exemplified in the comments to this article.
American, Greenville, SC, USA
Has USA stopped for one single day to hack other countries, while it is bugging its own citizens?
In no time in history has China been so much demonized like it in last 6 month. Only because China's growing stronger and overpassing the west one by one?
With Soviet Union gone, USA, as well as Hollywood, need a new enemy.
You may all disagree with my post. But try to think of the possible truth in it.
Huan Hai, Beijing,
So ridiculous .do you trust everything without any deeply observations?
SOMEON, SHANGHAI, CHINA
The American Spy plane you refer to was in international airspace when it was "attacked" by a chinese fighter pilot - an unprovoked attack. There are chinese boats and planes in all of our territorial waters and airspace and we don't attack them when they eavesdrop. They do it every day, you can go look in NY if you don't believe me - ask the harbor authorites how you can tell...
But our airplane was attacked and damaged. Since they had nothing to hide, they got permission to make an emergency landing inside of China. THis was only done WITH permission. The ensuing brouha was the chinese pretending to be the victims of spying as if they don't do such things. Totally for the domestic press since their control over their people is more and more tenuous. (China is freer than it used to be).
Now many of us won't buy fireworks and things clearly labeled Made in China since they attacked our airplane and made no apology. Our choice is based on theirs -now we have more reasons cyber-attacks
Kansan, Wichita, USA
As I see it, most if not all of the company or goverment agency today overlook the old way of hacking and viruses attacks etc. They focus on on today and future technology. Those guys out there are too smart because they were able to penetrate the hightech firewall using the old fashioned way of penetrating a network. Is it a technology failure? or Management failure?
Romel, Makati City,1227 Phils, Philippines
Well the world should wake up to china russia iran etc ,notice they all play the same game ?i didnt do it ! as china said in its speech by the general of the armed forces we need to gain land very soon as our land is ruined ,and cannot support more people (the war is not far from us www.peachall.com) (the times,The cpp"s last ditch gamble) they are just conning the west until the time is right for them to attack 1st with bioligical weapons according to them ,canada ,usa , they are very sneaky and have been getting under the radar in every country ,there were even questions about clinton/gore as to if they were helping the chinese giving secrets to them ,they certainly helped downsize the military and let china and russia have access to all the weapons ,So everyone should be aware havent you noticed the outbreak of strange diseases everywhere in the world ??? tests mabey ?? these countries have 1 thing in common total control of the people ,no frreedom , i suggest you look up speech
jack backerman, sydney,
oh no, the chinese are hacking without invading the american airspace,
but the american spy plan was caught red handed when it landed on china soil. "ooops! sorry...we invaded your airspace" :)
meeko, new york, usa
Oh my God!! The Chinese will find out that our civil service are incompetent. The tax credit system is a shambles, the CSA a joke, the Home Office not fit for purpose. That the juidiciary don't know their rear from their elbow, that we have an immigration and border control in name only. The final insult is, they will know we do not have any credible defence forces.
I've figured out why they are hacking in....they think it is the funniest thing since the Simpsons.
John MacKinnon, Lincoln, England
The UK and the EU countries are culpable of allowing China
such prowess in the first place. They were the first countries
to establish diplomatic relations with China and the most
active investors in China during the 80's.
Roberto, Sunnyvale, CA
"special firewalls and antivirus software", haven't we all? If it is connected to the internet (NOT the world wide web), it can be hacked. Period. And the government wants us to put our lives in the hands of vast and complex bureaucratic databases? Methinks not.
Jennifer Hynes, Plymouth, England
Brilliant idea JJ !
Mark Thien, Shanghai, China
Simple - don't have the computers on a network.....also good old fashioned card filing works nicely, you have to be standing there to hack the box.
JJ Huthwaite, London, UK