Cyber Warfare

Update

South Korea Says It Misidentified Source of Cyberattack
By CHOE SANG-HUN
SEOUL, South Korea — The South Korean government said on Friday that it was mistaken when it identified an Internet address in China as the source of synchronized cyberattacks that paralyzed the computer networks of banks and broadcasters.

The Korea Communications Commission, a government agency, said the Internet address actually belonged to a computer at NongHyup, one of the three banks affected by the hacking on Wednesday. It was mistaken earlier, it said, because the address, used only for the bank’s internal network, was identical to a public Internet Protocol address in China.

Such an I.P. address is useful for tracing the location of an Internet-connected computer, though experts say that that computer could be controlled by hackers operating elsewhere.

South Korean investigators have found “indications that the malicious codes were installed from abroad,” the commission said in a news release on Friday. “There are so many similarities in the ways the attacks were executed and the viruses used that we believe that there was probably a single group behind them.”

The coordinated attacks on Wednesday affected 32,000 computers and servers at the country’s two largest broadcasters, one cable channel and three banks. For hours the banks’ A.T.M.'s were shut down and account-holders could not use their debit cards.

The three banks were operating normally on Friday, but many of the broadcasters’ computers remained down.

Many in South Korea suspect that North Korea was behind the shutdowns, partly because it was suspected in earlier attacks against South Korean Web sites.

In addition, the North has recently issued a torrent of vaguely worded threats that it would retaliate against the South for staging joint military exercises with the United States and supporting the United Nations sanctions imposed against the North a nuclear test on Feb. 12.

But South Korea has not officially assigned blame. Government investigators said it would take weeks to complete their analysis. Even after a lengthy investigation, they said, it is still sometimes impossible to identity the hackers.

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This is not really cyber warfare (more like electronic attack), but this is the most relevant thread I can find on this forum and I don't feel like starting a new thread just for a rumor. So I shall tentatively post it here.

Remember when Japan sent 8 F-15s and an E-2C to intercept the Y-12?

According to Pupu the Nanjing Military district actually employed electronic attack aircraft to create "ghost images" of a much larger fleet (similar to how PLAAF was doped during the Taiwan Strait Crisis).

I think I heard some where about the Israelis doing the something once.

siegecrossbow said:

This is not really cyber warfare (more like electronic attack), but this is the most relevant thread I can find on this forum and I don't feel like starting a new thread just for a rumor. So I shall tentatively post it here.

Remember when Japan sent 8 F-15s and an E-2C to intercept the Y-12?

According to Pupu the Nanjing Military district actually employed electronic attack aircraft to create "ghost images" of a much larger fleet (similar to how PLAAF was doped during the Taiwan Strait Crisis).

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I wonder which of the high new series plane had did ​​it

Here is a discussion on Charlie Rose on alleged Chinese cyber espionage. The thing best said by the guest was America and China can not have an honest conversation on cyber security if both aren't honesty about having cyber weapons.

[video]http://www.bloomberg.com/video/journalist-david-sanger-on-cyberthreats-security-yyv1R6rRSwWiAr_5B69wbg.html[/video]

There's been big revelations this regarding cyber surveillance and warfare capabilities of the US. Im surprised no-one's posted the information here yet.

From what I can see, it's time for US to stop whinging about being hacked by China, as they themselves are doing more hacking, with greater capabilities, than anyone else in the world.

Complete articles at the links.




Obama orders US to draw up overseas target list for cyber-attacks

Exclusive: Top-secret directive steps up offensive cyber capabilities to 'advance US objectives around the world'

Barack Obama has ordered his senior national security and intelligence officials to draw up a list of potential overseas targets for US cyber-attacks, a top secret presidential directive obtained by the Guardian reveals.

The 18-page Presidential Policy Directive 20, issued in October last year but never published, states that what it calls Offensive Cyber Effects Operations (OCEO) "can offer unique and unconventional capabilities to advance US national objectives around the world with little or no warning to the adversary or target and with potential effects ranging from subtle to severely damaging".

It says the government will "identify potential targets of national importance where OCEO can offer a favorable balance of effectiveness and risk as compared with other instruments of national power".

The directive also contemplates the possible use of cyber actions inside the US, though it specifies that no such domestic operations can be conducted without the prior order of the president, except in cases of emergency.

The aim of the document was "to put in place tools and a framework to enable government to make decisions" on cyber actions, a senior administration official told the Guardian.

The administration published some declassified talking points from the directive in January 2013, but those did not mention the stepping up of America's offensive capability and the drawing up of a target list.

Obama's move to establish a potentially aggressive cyber warfare doctrine will heighten fears over the increasing militarization of the internet.

The directive's publication comes as the president plans to confront his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at a summit in California on Friday over alleged Chinese attacks on western targets.

Even before the publication of the directive, Beijing had hit back against US criticism, with a senior official claiming to have "mountains of data" on American cyber-attacks he claimed were every bit as serious as those China was accused of having carried out against the US.

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U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program

By Barton Gellman and Laura Poitras, Published: June 7 | Updated: Saturday, June 8, 12:51 AM

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post.

The program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. It may be the first of its kind. The NSA prides itself on stealing secrets and breaking codes, and it is accustomed to corporate partnerships that help it divert data traffic or sidestep barriers. But there has never been a Google or Facebook before, and it is unlikely that there are richer troves of valuable intelligence than the ones in Silicon Valley.

Equally unusual is the way the NSA extracts what it wants, according to the document: “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”

^^^

American hypocrisy at its finest.

Even before the publication of the directive, Beijing had hit back against US criticism, with a senior official claiming to have "mountains of data" on American cyber-attacks he claimed were every bit as serious as those

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was accused of having carried out against the US.

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An intelligence source with extensive knowledge of the National Security Agency's systems told the Guardian the US complaints again China were hypocritical, because America had participated in offensive cyber operations and widespread

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– breaking into foreign computer systems to mine information.
Provided anonymity to speak critically about classified practices, the source said: "We hack everyone everywhere. We like to make a distinction between us and the others. But we are in almost every country in the world."
The US likes to haul China before the international court of public opinion for "doing what we do every day", the source added.

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NSA Whistleblower in Hong Kong.

He does not fear the consequences of going public, he said, only that doing so will distract attention from the issues raised by his disclosures. "I know the media likes to personalise political debates, and I know the government will demonise me."
Despite these fears, he remained hopeful his outing will not divert attention from the substance of his disclosures. "I really want the focus to be on these documents and the debate which I hope this will trigger among citizens around the globe about what kind of world we want to live in." He added: "My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them."
He has had "a very comfortable life" that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy

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, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."

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One brave guy.

The primary complaint against China’s outift of military hackers has been dual pronged: the U.S. private sector is losing expensive proprietary information, and the public sector is having its sensitive weapons systems compromised.
China’s response has been, simply: yeah but the U.S. did it to us first, and worse.
It turns out, China might just be telling it like it is this time.
The deafening sound of internet aggregators shredding Edward Snowden’s life into digestible pieces drowned out probably one of the most epic posts of the week: Matthew M. Aid’s Foreign Policy piece titled “Inside the NSA’s Ultra-Secret China Hacking Group.”
In it, Aid describes how the U.S. has a long history of penetrating China’s systems — what they call “Computer Network Exploitation.” The U.S. government, as we should have assumed, knows the most intimate details about the Chinese communist party and its People’s Liberation Army.
From Aid’s piece:
A highly secretive unit of the National Security Agency (NSA) … called the Office of Tailored Access Operations, or TAO, has successfully penetrated Chinese computer and telecommunications systems for almost 15 years, generating some of the best and most reliable intelligence information about what is going on inside the People’s Republic of China.
TAO mirrors China’s methods by first hacking into computer networks, then protecting themselves from being identified, and finally copying ALL communications and files from within that network.
If that sounds familiar, its because the process nearly matches the description Mandiant — the company that caught Chinese hackers red-handed — gave to explain the method the PLA uses to steal American information.
Except America’s system pre-dates that of China.
Chinese defence Ministry spokesman, Geng Yansheng, recently said in a briefing:
“The team was set up to better safeguard the internet security of the armed forces. Cyber security was an international problem, affecting civil and military areas. China is still “relatively weak” in internet security protection, and vulnerable to cyber-terrorism.”
It’s not just China in the mix either — it’s Israel, Singapore, Japan, Switzerland, the U.K. and others, British intelligence analyst Glenmore Trenear-Harvey told InfoSec.com.
“This is not just conventional military powers. Put bluntly, everyone’s at it. It is a game anyone can play. But do remember that we – the U.S. and UK – are doing this in reverse and we are very successful,” said Trenear-Harvey.
Not only has Obama ordered the military to draw up a list of potential cyber targets around the globe, but most of the military academies now offer majors in Cyber Warfare.
There’s also been revelations that the cyber war is getting a big boost from the civilian side. Apparently, more than a third of the Marine Corps’ cyber war will be fought by contractors.
Hackers may be full of old tricks, but it’s a new battlefield, and it looks like everyone is down to play the game.
“[Cyber Warfare] an incredibly potent weapon which will certainly be utilized,” said Trenear-Harvey.

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Wonder what the implications will be.

A highly secretive unit of the National Security Agency (NSA) … called the Office of Tailored Access Operations, or TAO, has successfully penetrated Chinese computer and telecommunications systems for almost 15 years, generating some of the best and most reliable intelligence information about what is going on inside the People’s Republic of China.

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RahultheWaffle said:

Wonder what the implications will be.

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Not much since Western media will spin this so it will not look so bad for "us" in the west. As your quote above displays the West's supremacy in Cyber warfare. But you will be very lucky to see this in mainstream media. PR is everything in public perceptions and the Western Govs. know it. Even with all the Soft power China is using these days it will always be spun negatively in the Western media.