Thursday, May 10, 2007
Have you checked your balance lately?
I just thought you'd like something else to worry about...
I found this in an article by Rebecca Sausner at BankTechNews.com:
"That huge and growing threat has stayed under the radar of most information security executives primarily because Chinese hackers' end game is much more subtle than the typical Eastern European cyber thief. Unlike the stereotypical Russian hackers, who aim for financial gain, the prototypical Chinese infiltration embraces a long-term strategic approach to cyber crime. Put bluntly, they seem to want the intellectual property that makes our country tick, not our life savings. Second, unless there are Chinese language notes embedded in the code, it's extremely tough to know if an attack is coming from China, or if Chinese servers are just the last hopping point for an American hacker disguising his actions.
But government officials willing to talk about the issue-and there aren't many-offer it up in grave terms. Maj. Gen. William Lord, director of information, services and integration in the Air Force's Office of Warfighting Integration and CIO, called the Chinese infiltration of an insecure government logistics network 'a nation-state threat' by the Chinese.
The pronouncement comes amid mounting evidence of cross-border cyber incursions, including half a dozen or more discovered by Federal agencies. And then there is the rising number of attacks against U.S. corporates, from financial services down to public utilities. These attacks are fueled by malware and botnets, two cyberwar weapons that China now excels at producing."
