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Hey IT Nerd! Do US Charges Against Chinese Hackers Mean Anything?

Posted in Commentary with tags , , on May 20, 2014 by itnerd

Another question from a reader popped into my inbox today:

Good afternoon. Yesterday, the US Government laid charges against a number of Chinese officials for cybercrimes against six US companies. My question is, does that really matter as I don’t see China handing these people over to stand trial?

Thanks for the question. Before I answer your question, let me do a quick recap. Yesterday the US Department of Justice laid charges against five people who they accused of hacking six US companies and then turning over whatever they electronically stole to Chinese based companies. In effect, these five people are accused of cyber espionage for commercial gain. Now, I’m all for going after those who hack other people or companies and I am all for them being punished to the fullest extent of the law. However, that’s likely not going to happen in this case. There’s zero chance that China will hand over these people. Which means they will never face justice. Plus this is likely to increase tensions between the US and China. Thus other than give the appearance that the US is going after cybercrime, I fail to see the point of this exercise. Perhaps there’s something going on behind the scenes that is connected to this that will clarify things, assuming we find out about it. But as it stands now, the logic of laying these charges escapes me.

Perhaps some of the readers of this blog has some further insight on this? If so, please leave a comment and share your wisdom.

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Lenovo And Huawei Accused Of Spying For China….. Is This China Bashing?

Posted in Commentary with tags , , on July 30, 2013 by itnerd

If you ask me what PC laptop to buy for business, my answer is usually Lenovo. The used to be the old laptop division of IBM and they make quality stuff. But that may not matter any longer as the news is out that the governments of Australia, the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand among others have started to ban Lenovo hardware from secure networks due to the fact that they fear that the Chinese owned company has back doors that can threaten their security. Now this isn’t new as another Chinese firm has the same issue. Huawei not only makes mobile phones, but it makes switching gear for mobile phone carriers. Thus it’s been accused of the same thing by Michael Hayden, the former head of the CIA. A claim the company denies.

So. Here’s the $64 question. Are these fears justified or is this some sort of paranoia of the Chinese. Now I don’t claim to know all the answers, but I would say two things. First,  the people who are making these claims need to show proof that these companies are conduits for Chinese spying. If they can’t prove it, then they need to put their accusations in the bin and not raise them again. Second, if you put a piece of hardware on your business network, you should evaluate if it could potentially pose a threat to your company. If you think it does, keep it off your network. And I would say that this would be true if the hardware came from anyone and not just these two companies. Because anything could be a threat. It doesn’t have to come from a specific place.

What do you think? Are people over-reacting or is there a legitimate concern here? Post a comment and share your thoughts.

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Woman Dies While Using iPhone 5 That Was Charging….. Apple Investigates

Posted in Commentary with tags , , on July 15, 2013 by itnerd

According to Reuters, Apple is looking into the death of a woman in China who was talking on her iPhone 5 while it was charging and was electrocuted. Apple had this to say:

“We are deeply saddened to learn of this tragic incident and offer our condolences to the Ma family. We will fully investigate and cooperate with authorities in this matter,” Apple said in an e-mail.

Apple declined to comment on details, such as whether this was an isolated case.

This came to light when the victim’s sister Tweeted about this and the post went viral. I think at this point, it’s important to not rush to any conclusions until Apple does a full investigation. China is a market that Apple wants to play in, thus you can fully expect them to be transparent about this investigation.

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Chinese Hackers Hit Gmail

Posted in Commentary with tags , , on June 1, 2011 by itnerd

Several high profile Gmail users were hit by Chinese hackers according to Google:

Google says computer hackers in China broke into the Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including senior government officials in the U.S. and political activists.

“This campaign, which appears to originate from Jinan, China, affected what seem to be the personal Gmail accounts of hundreds of users including, among others, senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists,” Google said in a statement

“The goal of this effort seems to have been to monitor the contents of these users’ emails, with the perpetrators apparently using stolen passwords to change peoples’ forwarding and delegation settings.”

Google says all victims have been notified and their accounts have been secured.

“It’s important to stress that our internal systems have not been affected — these account hijackings were not the result of a security problem with Gmail itself,” Google said. “But we believe that being open about these security issues helps users better protect their information online.”

Here’s the problem. This is yet another cyberattack from China, and you have to believe that even if the Chinese government doesn’t directly support these sorts of attacks, they don’t seem to be too interested in stopping these attacks. Which still makes them pretty guilty in my mind.

My advice, I’d change your Gmail password and make it as secure as possible. It doesn’t hurt to be careful.

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China Bans Non-Chinese Internet Phone Services

Posted in Commentary with tags , on December 30, 2010 by itnerd

In the interest of protecting the domestic phone services, China has pretty much banned Skype and any other Internet phone service that isn’t owned by the Chinese:

The ministry’s move, however, also has business in mind. China has said only state-owned telecoms China Telecom and China Unicom have the right to offer Internet phone services for calls that link telephones and computers.

But few do. The country’s major telecoms have been offering Internet phone services only on a trial basis in four cities, according to Kan Kaili, a director of China VoIP & Digital Telecom Inc., a company that has offered Internet phone services. That leaves the market to the hundreds of small-scale companies have sprung up.

“This notice is actually protecting the telecoms’ traditional voice services,” said Mr. Kan, who is also a professor at the Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications. It’s “obviously a wrong thing, absolutely wrong.”

Lovely. One thing that crossed my mind is that their might be another reason for this. The Chinese might be afraid of VoIP services like Skype because they likely would have difficulty snooping on users.

Thoughts?

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China Renews Google’s Licence To Operate

Posted in Commentary with tags , on July 9, 2010 by itnerd

So I guess if you’re Google, folding up like a cheap suit so that you can continue to operate in China has its advantages. Such as having your right to own a domain and operate in China renewed. That apparently happened today and was announced on their blog:

We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP license and we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China.

At the end of the day, it’s all about the Benjamins and not about doing the right thing. I guess I was expecting something different from a company that claims to “do no evil.” Silly me.

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Google Folds Up Like A Cheap Suit And Starts Redirecting Traffic Through China

Posted in Commentary with tags , on June 30, 2010 by itnerd

Not that I’m shocked by this by any means, but it looks like Google has backed down from its stance of redirecting Chinese traffic through Hong Kong in the interest of providing uncensored search results.  The Google Blog is now reporting the following:

We currently automatically redirect everyone using Google.cn to Google.com.hk, our Hong Kong search engine. This redirect, which offers unfiltered search in simplified Chinese, has been working well for our users and for Google. However, it’s clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable—and that if we continue redirecting users our Internet Content Provider license will not be renewed (it’s up for renewal on June 30). Without an ICP license, we can’t operate a commercial website like Google.cn—so Google would effectively go dark in China.

And:

Over the next few days we’ll end the redirect entirely, taking all our Chinese users to our new landing page—and today we re-submitted our ICP license renewal application based on this approach.

Clearly the almighty dollar outweighs making a stand for what is right and just in the universe. It’s sad to see Google back down like this, but like I said, I’m not surprised.

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Chinese Hackers Are At It Again…. WTF?

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 7, 2010 by itnerd

First Google, then Yahoo, and now the Dalai Lama? What is up with hackers from China?

The word on the street is that the among others, the Dalai Lama got his e-mail hacked by a group of Chinese hackers. The hack was discovered by a group of Canadian researchers:

For eight months, researchers based at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto worked with independent computer analysts in the United States to monitor the activities of a gang of Chinese hackers based in the central city of Chengdu.

The Munk Centre was responsible for the discovery of GhostNet last year, an enormous Chinese hacking network that had penetrated 103 countries and almost 1,300 computers. One-third of the targets were highly sensitive, including foreign ministries, embassies and even a computer at Nato headquarters.

Of course, the Chinese when approached with this info had a very predictable response:

A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign ministry said the country condemned hacking, but that there was no official government response.

He added: “My personal view is that this is an attempt by the foreign media to spin the issue of hacking for political purposes, especially since this report is related to Tibet. The report appears groundless and comes from an institute that is not credible.”

That’s right, blame the messenger.

The fact is that the Chinese government is either looking the other way when it comes to hackers within their borders, or they are active participants in this. Either way, this is a cause for concern because while there is currently no direct link between the hackers and the Chinese government, one has to believe that the info that was stolen will find it’s way into the hands of the Chinese government. It would be nice if the Chinese government came out and said that it will put a stop to this, but somehow I don’t see that happening. So with that in mind, I’d expect that companies all over the place should look at beefing up their IT security to stop this from happening.

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Yahoo Targeted In Hack From China… Here We Go Again…

Posted in Commentary with tags , on March 31, 2010 by itnerd

First it was Google, and now Yahoo seems to be the target of a hack from China. According to Reuters, The Yahoo email accounts of foreign journalists and activists based in China have been hacked:

Several journalists in China and Taiwan found they were unable to access their accounts beginning March 25, among them Kathleen McLaughlin, a freelance journalist in Beijing. Her access was restored on Wednesday, she told Reuters.

The compromised accounts include those of the World Uyghur Congress, an exile group that China accuses of inciting separatism by ethnic Uighurs in the frontier region of Xinjiang.

Charming. Yahoo for it’s part did some half hearted chest thumping:

“Yahoo! condemns all cyber attacks regardless of origin or purpose,” spokeswoman Dana Lengkeek said in an email response to a Reuters query.

“We are committed to protecting user security and privacy and we take appropriate action in the event of any kind of breach.”

Yeah, but are you going to pull out of China the way that Google sort of did or are you going to go further? That’s what we really want to know. Besides, the optics of letting something like this slide would just suck. But they may be thinking of the revenue that they’d lose if they pulled the plug on China.

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GoDaddy Now The Latest To Flee China

Posted in Commentary with tags , on March 24, 2010 by itnerd

Wired is reporting that Internet Registrar GoDaddy.com has decided to stop selling .cn domain names as domain name holders in China would be required to provide photo ID:

GoDaddy’s top lawyer Christine Jones told Congress Wednesday that the new rules were an “attempt to exercise censorship on the subject matter hosted on domain names.”

“We are concerned for the safety of current domain name holders and about the chilling effect it could have for new registrants,” Jones said.

Jones made her statement at a Wednesday convening of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a bicameral and bi-partisan legislative group.

With Google and reportedly Dell leaving the country, will there be any U.S. Businesses left to do business with China? At this point one has to wonder.

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