Chinese hackers access Indian defense computers, report says

Beijing - An organized group of hackers apparently based in China has infiltrated Indian government computers and accessed confidential documents including sensitive defense material, international cyber espionage experts reported on Tuesday.

The experts found "documented evidence of a cyber espionage network that compromised government, business and academic computer systems in India," said the joint report by the Canada-based Information Warfare Monitor and the international Shadowserver Foundation.

The network also targeted the United Nations and the office of the Dalai Lama, the India-based exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader, the report said.

"Numerous other institutions, including the embassy of Pakistan in the United States, were also compromised," it said. "Some of these institutions can be positively identified, while others cannot."

Some 1,500 letters sent from the Dalai Lama's office between January and November 2009 were among the documents recovered during the eight-month study that led to the report.

"The profile of documents recovered suggests that the attackers targeted specific systems and profiles of users," it said.

The experts said they uncovered a "complex and tiered command and control infrastructure" that used free social media systems such as Twitter, Google Groups, Blogspot, Baidu Blogs, blog.com and Yahoo Mail.

Compromised computers were ultimately directed to a "stable core of command and control servers" in China, the report said, adding that links were found to two known hackers in China's Chengdu city.

It said the hacking network had accessed many sensitive but non-classified Indian defense documents, including some linked to the Pechora missile system, the Iron Dome missile system, and the Project Shakti artillery combat command and control system.

They also accessed 14 documents from the computer system of the Indian National Security Council Secretariat, including two marked secret, the report said.

Reacting to the report on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu reiterated China's position that it "opposes all cyber crime, including hacking."

"Cyber crime is an international issue," Jiang told reporters. "We believe that the international community should work jointly on this issue."

Jiang did not deny Chinese involvement in the hacking, but she said the authors of the report had "never shown any evidence to the Chinese side and never requested an investigation."

Information Warfare Monitor is a joint activity of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto and the SecDev Group, an Ottawa-based security consultancy.

The Shadowserver Foundation is a voluntary group of security professionals.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/317293,chinese-hackers-access-indian-defence-computers-report-says.html.