Kurt Sansone
Malta victim of international cyber spy network
Canadian researchers have uncovered an electronic spy network based in China, which has infiltrated computers in government offices around the world and Malta is on the list of victims.
The investigation by the Information Warfare Monitor revealed that the criminal network infiltrated 1,295 computers in 103 countries. It seems the hackers were able to take control of computers belonging to several foreign ministries and embassies across the world using malicious software, known as malware.
Researchers called the spy network GhostNet. An abstract of the report, called The Snooping Dragon: Social Malware Surveillance Of The Tibetan Movement, was posted on IWM's website.
Over the past six months, Malta's government IT agency (Mita) suffered at least two major cyber attacks. It is unclear whether these incidents had anything to do with the spy network uncovered by IWM. Questions sent to Mita remained unanswered at the time of writing.
In September, almost 20,000 government passwords were believed to have been compromised in an internet attack that was traced back to the Maltese embassy in Cairo.
Earlier this month, the embassies server maintained by Mita suffered another attack. Mita had said that it identified "unauthorised software" on the embassies server, which stores the user credentials of personnel in Maltese embassies.
The agency had reported that no data was extracted.
The 10-month IWM international investigation was requested by the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, to check whether the computers of his Tibetan exile network had been infiltrated.
There was no evidence that China's government was behind the spy-ring. The Chinese government also denied involvement.
Researchers found that the ministries of foreign affairs of Iran, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, Barbados and Bhutan were targeted.
Hacked systems were also discovered in the embassies of India, South Korea, Indonesia, Romania, Cyprus, Malta, Thailand, Taiwan, Portugal, Germany and Pakistan.
By installing malware on compromised computers, hackers were able to take control of them to send and receive classified data.
The software also gave hackers the ability to use audio and video recording devices to monitor the rooms the computers were in. But investigators said they did not know whether or not this element had been used.
IWM comprises researchers from Ottawa-based think tank SecDev Group and the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies.
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Martin Büttner
Mar 31st 2009, 08:40
1. The spy network is not necessaryily based in China. The track was just lost in China. It could still bebased anywhere else in the world, maybe in the US, or inf France, or Israel, or Saudi, or wherever. Anyway, the probability that it is indeed based in China is high. Just consider China's aggressive way to secure resources and to expand economically.
2. As long as Mircosoft Windows exists, computers will be infected with viruses, phishing devices, malware, etc.
This is a reason why more and more people switch to other operating systems, like Linux or Linux based. First of all it is open source (no expensive fees, no registration with personal data, etc.), and second it is much safer. Even governments or governmental institutions switch to Linux. The most popular one might be the German parliament "Bundestag" which switched to Linux successfully in 2005.
edward bartolo
Mar 30th 2009, 23:15
@Carmel Spiteri
Only an "ad hominem"?! Your argument is very convincing!
The plague of network hacking is symptomatic of making the wrong decisions. Microsoft, like all huge corporations, has the expertise, but marketing pressures, usually are placed first and foremost.
There are ways of limiting this plague, and experts know what are they. If you don't know, do some research. Networking, is like politics: values are involved, and these, affect what is decided. As you may see, it is not only a problem relating to applying a technology, but involves other factors very diverse from technology.
Giselle Borg Olivier
Mar 30th 2009, 17:26
More information about this cyberspy network can be found here - http://www.allspammedup.com/2009/03/massive-chinese-cyberspy-network-discovered/
Marius Grech
Mar 30th 2009, 17:01
Does anyone seriously believe that not all Countries spy on each other all the time ,regardless of whether they are friend of foe?. If they have the means and the expertise ,they do. It's no secret
T BORG
Mar 30th 2009, 15:10
"By installing malware on compromised computers" - to install the software, an authorised person with access to at least one system on a network must have opened up an initial file that would let a trojan into the system. There should be tighter regulation on what is allowed on the network systems. Any emails apart from those of the embassy itself should not be allowed, sites which are susceptible to hacking (most social-networking sites due to the large number of users) should also be put on the black list or controlled. File types with known risks (such as false "image" files) can also be contained.
I am sure the guys at Mita know what they are doing - just hope more can be done to safeguard our systems. The problem is, hackers are normally always one step ahead. As soon as something is done to block their way, they shortly find another slot to get through.
Carmel Spiteri
Mar 30th 2009, 13:27
@ edward bartolo
My dear sir! If you know what you're talking about...Microsoft would be absolutely delighted to talk to you! They would pay you any price you name!
edward bartolo
Mar 30th 2009, 12:44
Quote: "By installing malware on compromised computers, hackers were able to take control of them to send and receive classified data."
What?! This is ridiculous! And we call computers and anything related, HIGH TECH! Maybe TODDLER TECH is a better description.
These are all symptoms stemming from the same illness. Why should an OS be so naive, as to allow the installation and execution of software from an unrecognised computer?! This only adds insult to injury.