CybersecurityMajor increase in cyber attacks on China's government
China recently reported that last year its government websites experienced a 68 percent increase in cyber attacks; a total of 35,000 Chinese websites, including 4,635 government sites, were hit by hackers in 2010; attacks on non-government websites decreased 22 percent in 2010, while attacks on government websites had increased; in response to the increased number of cyber attacks, the report urged local regulators to step up efforts to police the Internet and deter these hackers by imposing stricter penalties; five million Chinese IP addresses had been infected with a trojan horse or corpse virus
In a twist of events, China recently reported that last year its government websites experienced a 68 percent increase in cyber attacks.
The Chinese government has been accused of sponsoring cyber attacks against major companies like Google and Yahoo as well as governments around the world.
A report released by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China (CNCERT/CC) found that a total of 35,000 Chinese websites, including 4,635 government sites, were hit by hackers in 2010.
Attacks on non-government websites actually decreased 22 percent in 2010, while attacks on government websites had increased nearly 70 percent.
The report also found that roughly 60 percent of ministerial-level websites have potential security risks.
Zhou Yonglin, head of the Operation Department at CNCERT/CC, explains, “Hackers use two main means to attack government websites. One means is to turn the homepage of government websites into that of hacker organizations in order to show off their skills and the other is to hide hackers’ own pages on government Web sites before telling potential buyers that the servers and bandwidth of the government Web sites have been under their control and can be leased and transferred to criminals.”
In response to the increased number of cyber attacks, the report urged local regulators to step up efforts to police the Internet and deter hackers by imposing stricter penalties. The report suggested enacting similar rules as those currently in place in the United States regarding Web safety.
After cyber attacks against China’s largest search engine Baidu, the report said that Chinese Internet companies and users should increase monitoring of malicious cyber activity.
The report also found that five million Chinese IP addresses had been infected with a trojan horse or corpse virus. China has roughly 457 million Internet users, more than any other country in the world.
“Internet safety is becoming a tougher issue day by day,” the report said. It went on to say that attacks against the technology, finance, energy, and transportation sectors will increase.
CNCERT/CC is affiliated with the China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
The Chinese government maintains that it is the victim of cyber attacks and does not encourage them.
The French government recently confirmed that sensitive files were stolen in highly sophisticated and targeted attacks against its Budget Ministry’s computers.
An anonymous French official was quoted saying, “We noted that a certain amount of the information was redirected to Chinese sites. But that [in itself] does not say very much.”
McAfee analysts also recently determined that a series of highly targeted cyber attacks stole sensitive financial data worth millions of dollars from five major multinational oil and gas companies.
Evidence suggests that the attacks may have originated from China, but according to Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president for threat research at McAfee, it remains unclear if the attacks were “government sponsored in any way.”
