Chinese Hack Attacks on DoD Networks Coordinated

An anonymous reader writes " The Naval Network Warfare Command says that Chinese hackers are relentlessly targeting Defense Department networks with cyber attacks. The 'volume, proficiency and sophistication' of the attacks supports the theory that the attacks are government supported. The motives of the attacks emanating from China include technology theft, intelligence gathering, exfiltration, research on DOD operations and the creation of dormant presences in DOD network for future action. Onlookers warn that current US defenses against these attacks are 'dysfunctional', and that more aggressive measures should be taken to ensure government network safety."

Far outstripping other attackers

Attacks coming from China, probably with government support, far outstrip other attackers in terms of volume, proficiency and sophistication, said a senior Netwarcom official

Gee, ya think? China has more than a billion people. I know they're not all running around with shiny new laptops, but come on - this is akin to saying that the majority of low-temperature attacks on the United States come from Canada. Well, duh!

I can make the same "cyberattack" claims about my not-worth-cracking dedicated servers and the dinky firewall machine sitting on my cable modem, too, but that doesn't mean I'm engaged in a "cyberwar" with anyone. The majority of rooted machines trying to root mine are in China. Most of this comes in the form of automated attempts to bruteforce ssh, but I've seen targeted attempts where there's clearly a human on the other end of the wire.

While I don't doubt that DoD machines are probably being targeted intentionally, there's an overwhelming amount of garbage traffic coming out of central and eastern Asia, and it hits everyone. Nearly half of all my rejected SMTP traffic is from Chinese netspace, but most of it's trying to peddle western products to American consumers, the Chinese people have nothing to do with it. China's so full of compromised hosts that whoever's actually cracking DoD machines is probably sitting in an internet cafe in Milan, piping data through some rooted .gov.cn box...

Oh, and the next person to use "spear phishing" in an article is getting a swift kick in the nuts!

Re:Far outstripping other attackers

That is an interesting statement:

"China's so full of compromised hosts that whoever's actually cracking DoD machines is probably sitting in an internet cafe in Milan, piping data through some rooted .gov.cn box..."

I wonder how easy it would be to pin this on MS products that have been pirated?

Its an interesting twist of thought to think that MS is responsible for cyber attacks on the DOD. While that isn't true, it's still interesting in a 'haha' kind of way.

Makes me believe that there will be counter-attack strategies that include government sponsored worms traversing the Internet trying to secure those compromised hosts.

Re:Far outstripping other attackers

China has more than a billion people.

Yes, and of those, only 137 million Chinese are online. In contrast, the US has about 185 million online. So, the fact that the majority of the attacks are coming from China is indeed significant. That is particularly true given the sophistication of the attacks cited and the military targets they are going after.

Re:Far outstripping other attackers

And of those online in China, only 36 million have broadband connections. Further, black markets and pirated software are not just limited to China. In fact, they're all over. So, with the prevalence of pirated software worldwide, why are the majority of the attacks coming from one place? Why are the attacks from that one place going to US military targets? And why are the attacks so sophisticated?

It is widely known that the Chinese want our secrets and technology, especially those surrounding the military. It is widely known that the Chinese actually do copy and steal US trade and military secrets and technology. And it is widely known that as friendly as the Chinese act toward the US, that the Chinese work behind the scenes to subvert US influence and control.

Given the number of sophisticated attacks coming from a single country against US military targets, especially coming from a country that has been militarily hostile to us in the recent past [cnn.com], then I'd say we probably are getting attacked.

Attacks? We know what to do

Time for the US to execute a "phased redeployment" away from the Internet.

Back to uunet or fidonet, where our bits can be safe.

Sure

Onlookers warn that current US defenses against these attacks are 'dysfunctional', and that more aggressive measures should be taken to ensure government network safety.

Sure... drop some bombs. What could possibly go wrong?

Onlookers?

I am a civilian contractor for the US government, and I can guarantee that we are hit all the time with attempts to get into our networks on the secret and SCI sides.

However, I would like to know who these "onlookers" are... The defense measures (can't say specifically of course) that we take are plenty effective against all types of attacks we get. One of our top priorities is writing code that is solid and secure. We run scans (again, specifics are classified) nightly to test the security of our infrastructure and applications.

Whoever these "onlookers" are, I would love to hear about how THEY successfully hacked into our network instead of just criticizing with no actual knowledge.

Re:Onlookers?

Why in the hell do you have your secret and SCI sides on the internet? That's DOD/DOE no-no number one!

Separate systems, separate networks, separate terminals.

I can tell you from my experience as a person who contracts as a "Q" that not only is the DOE stepping up their security methods, they're cutting funding to places that don't keep the mustard. LANL may be cut at the end of this FY -- thanks to the fiasco a few weeks ago where someone walked out of the labs with thumb drives of info. Needless to say, they were audited, and they brought out a lot of epoxy to glue down the USB/Firewire ports.

Also, weak passwords should be pretty much a thing of a past -- now that DOE's mandating that everyone use CryptoCards in the next year-ish (no, not those expensive RSA things -- they're out of a company in Canada).

Re:Onlookers?

Why in the hell do you have your secret and SCI sides on the internet? That's DOD/DOE no-no number one!

To answer you, the guy is speaking out of his ass. He's probably an EDS sub-contractor on the NMCI handling help desk calls about email and web proxies and probably thinks SNORT ACID is something he can get busted for.

Mr. ChooseAnother probably doesn't realize that commenting on this, attributing to himself as an insider is a sure-fire way to get his nads hooked to some 'trodes and get his non-clearance revoked.

But, man, he does sound so C O O L don't you want to be just like him when you grow up?

Re:Onlookers?

I, also, am a civilian contractor for the US government. I can't say specifically, of course, but we got these lasers and we laser stuff. Yes indeed. Lasering stuff is what we do. Whenever we're cracked (or partially cracked), we laser the crackers. We are no ordinary crackees, though I can't say specifically in what way (other than what I just mentioned about the lasers).

Our lasers are plenty effective. Don't criticize me with no actual knowledge.

Speculation?

"Attacks coming from China, probably with government support, far outstrip other attackers in terms of volume, proficiency and sophistication" Government support of attacks on DOD networks is not a minor accusation. You would need a lot more evidence beyond potential motives and speculation to suggest that such an attack is government supported.

counterattack?

I wonder how much China would complain if the NSA launched an attack against any confirmed hosts? If there is evidence that computers are attacking use, either live or as bots, can China make a real complaint about us protecting our interests?

view from a different perspective

I often find those postings one-sided. In this case,some posters are readily to advocate the USE of military as a result of this. We have the most sophisticated electronic and information warfare capability in the world and people just tend to pretend that we don't do this kind of information warfare everyday. And whenever other nations are "alleged" to conduct such, those ignorant people just ready to beat the drum of war.

Another thing is, as of now, China doesn't even need to fire a single bullet to beat the crap out of us if we decide to launch a war on them.

China currently has 1000 billion US dollar foreign reserve, that is somewhere 1/5 to 1/4 of ALL US dollar reserve held by foreign countries. At the onset of the war, China will have three options: one is conventional warfare, two is nuclear warfare, three is financial warfare.

Conventional warfare is something US would avoid, think Korean War. Nuclear Warfare is something both would avoid, unless the fat lady sings(the absolute last resort.)

At the beginning, we of course would bomb the crap out of their infrastructure and military installation, given our air superiority, as we did in Iraq. And China knows this and know they would not win in this course of action.

All they need to do is to make a threat or actually dump US dollar reserve on the international market.

Don't think this would happen? Brush up your knowledge of Suez Canal crisis of 1956. That was exactly what happened when British and French forces rapily withdrew after successful military invasion after Eisnehower threathened to sell US reserves of British pound and thereby to collapse the British currency. Of course the British pound was already under pressure after decades of British colonial expansions that spent a lot of money, not unlike the current US national debt of today. Most historians agree the Suez Canal is the major milestone of the demise of British empire.

When you have 25% of another country's currency on the market, that is a pretty powerful hand. All you need to do is dump all that at once onto the international market. It effectively and immediately collapses the US currency and the whole American economy. Do you think other countries will have the capacity and more importantly the willingness to buy those currency. Do you think other nations would be willing to lend us money by buying up treasury bills, knowing our money would be worthless on the market.Hell no. People all over the world will be dumping US dollar like crazy. US stockmarket will crash; there will be endless runs to the bank.

The economy as we know of will cease to exist.

Some people of course will doubt that China woud do this. But when you are been bombed crap out of you a-ss and you are getting desperate. Trust me, you'lldo anything.

This, my friend, is how the war between China and US will play out NOW. But very very unlikely to happen. It is like two big boys on the playground. Of course it is nice to be the only king of THE playground. But sometimes it easier to share it a little with someone as strong as you are. That is, the essence of international relation. Boy, I just hope we don't have some airheads in the administration thinking otherwise.

So for those people ignorant of economy and internation politics, you can stop making those senseless remarks. Brush up on your knowledge before making a fool out of yourself.

I am the Decider.

"My job is to pertect the American people from cyberattack. When we find IP packets that are in that country that are hurting our computers, we're going to do something about it. ... Does this mean I'm looking for a pretext to start a war with China? No. It means I'm trying to protect our computers. That's what that means.

Despite our warrantless wiretaps, I don't think we know who picked up the phone and said .Hackers, go do this,. but we know it's a vital part of the Chinese government."

Secretary of States Bill Gates added "For the umpteenth time, we are not looking for an excuse to go to war with China. We are not planning a war with China. Yes, we do have contingency plans for wars with every other country in the world, but not China. And even it we did, we have not taken any actual final decisions to act on them in the immediately foreseeable future. We have just sent elint-equipped cruisers to the East China Sea, but those are just there to help Taiwan with its streaming internet video capacity."

In response to a question from reporters as to whether cyberattacks originating from other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, had been observed, Gates said "That's classified information. And besides, who cares? We're not talking about Saudi Arabia, we're talking about China."

If China did it, it wouldn't use Chinese IPs

Basically, if it were the Chinese government behind it, they would find machines in the US and Europe to zombify, and launch their attacks on government computers from those machines. They would use so many layers of net access that it'd be exceedingly difficult to track it back to hacker.gov.cn. If there was a coordinated attack by the Chinese government, and the US managed to track it back to them, the NSA would probably keep quiet about it so that they don't give away their capabilities and so that they'd have a method to feed China misinformation.

This is most likely a coordinated attack by someone who wants US information (could be any country/organization in the world) and developed a botnet which happens to mostly reside in China, since China's computers tend not to get frequent security updates. The fact that the IP addresses are originating from China indicates that it's probably anyone but China.

However...China-bashing does score political points right now.

asses versus elbows

After the Iraq WMD fiasco I don't trust the US to know its ass from its elbow when it comes to these sorts of things.

The standards of evidence are obviously so low that nowadays all you have to do is imagine a threat and suddenly it's real and all sorts of circumstantial evidence points to it being true.

Re:mitigate the problems

I strongly suspect that DoD WANTS to see the attacks. You are exactly right, if the DoD were really concerned about the loss of classified information they would simply block those IP ranges. Something more sophsiticated is probably at work.

1. Create a honeypot that doesn't look like a honeypot.
2. Fire off press releases complaining about how intelligent and crafty those 1337 Chinese Hackers are.
3. Watch and learn.

I can't think of a better way to assess the level of skill the Chinese possess. I seriously doubt that valuable classified information is within reach of internet connected machines. This article and probably most like it are misinformation designed to encourage the Chinese.

Re:mitigate the problems

I seriously doubt that valuable classified information is within reach of internet connected machines.

You are probably right.
But only in the most literal sense.

There are multiple levels of classification and squarely in the middle of unclassified and secret is sensitive information. If you add enough of it together, you can end up with information that can be considered secret.

The best example i can think of is this story:
Grad Student's Work Reveals National Infrastructure [slashdot.org]
Duped the next day: Fiber-Optic Map: A Classified Dissertation? [slashdot.org]

Just because information isn't classified as secret, doesn't mean it's useless.

Oh nonsense. Here are the biggest problems.

Honestly, if this were an attempt to bring us down for good, it would simply be far, far easier to just use the backend offices of the banks which have been offshored, and take out our economic system.

The amount of confusion and damage that this could do would be enormous. And it would have the added benefit (to the attacker) of leaving the hard assets (buildings, people) in place, unlike an actual war. These could be simply bought up later, rather cheaply.

There are different ways to root a country. Actual destruction is the most expensive and inefficent approach there is.

The real cause of these cyberspace attacks is that the U.S. government has actively encouraged them. First, the Feds have actually punished Government employees who have tried to stop these attacks. Read The Invasion of the Chinese Cyberspies (And the Man Who Tried to Stop Them) [time.com] This is a variation on a common theme of the attitude of the U.S. government, unfortunately. Protecting the U.S. appears not to be a priority.

The second biggest problem is that the Federal Government has set up a hostile enviroment to discourage Security Research. Security researches are threatened with prosecution, jail time and civil lawsuits that can bankrupt them. The common occurance is when a Researcher reports a problem with a flaw in a product. There are no Safe Harbor procedures or provisions in any Federal law which allow this to happen so that society in general can benefit.

This has had a rather chilling effort on the IT industry as a whole. There is no safe way to study real cracking, so our students (and industry workers) really don't understand how the bad guys work. This also has the added downside that new technologies are developed without any real understanding (or even concern) of what the attack vectors are. MS Windows is the best known example. Javascript is the second best.

Had the U.S. implemented Safe Harbor provisions, we'd be in far better shape to deal with hostile attacks, throughout the entire industry.

While the offshoring of jobs has had an effect, without the above two points we'd still have this problem. Furthermore, if we had shored up and expanded our efforts in Security Research, we would be a lot more resistant to backoffice exploits.

It is also obvious that security can't be offshored. So if the Federal government had made security a priority, your original point would be moot.

Short term gain vs. long term goals

China is too lucrative a market, that American corporations are pressuring the US government to be lenient with China, despite of all the problems that you listed.

Some decades in the future, China will turn out to be a real and formidable rival (economically, geopolitically, culturally, ...etc.), and will probably be the next empire.

Meanwhile, instead of preparing for such a prospect, the US has forsaken the obvious means of combating terrorism, for example intelligence, infiltration, disruption, and targeted strikes, and went into a full all out war on two countries, draining its budget, increasing its dead, and earning it the wrath of much of the world.

Go figure ...

Re:Idiots

those are all true of the United States too.

If we screw with the exchange rates, why do we have a trade and credit deficit? As far as being difficult for outsiders to do business, we have one of the most open-to-business countries there is. It is not perfect, but one of the top in that regard. And although we slipped on the human rights with Gitmo etc., it is still far more open a proces than what China has. Our system is a B-, their's is an F. And, our polution regulations are much tougher than theirs. I've been there and seen a red moon directly overhead (it was not an eclipse). True, US regs are weaker than Europe's, but Europe is not the issue here.
         

Re:Idiots

..."it's about time we had a new superpower to keep the US under thumb."

Be careful of what you wish for my friend.

Re:A Military Attack is Military Attack

Someone once posted me a rather hurtful letter from France once. It's only obvious that we bomb the shit out of the French postal service.

I think that's the sort of logic the OP is going for at least...

Re:A Military Attack is Military Attack

you didn't seriously think America doesn't do exactly the same thing to everyone else, did you?

Yes, but we pray to Jesus before we do it. Makes all the difference.
     

Re:Nethack Terminus

C'mon, we're talking about a Chinese distributed hack here. Here's the quote that should have leaped into your head.

"If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it." -- Sun Tzu, The Art of War