• Microsoft partner in China trains hackers, steals 50 MB of U.S. gov't e-mail

    A Chinese security firm called Topsec got access to the Windows source under a 2003 agreement designed to help companies improve the security of the Microsoft operating system; the company, rather than help Microsoft make Windows more secure, worked closely with Chinese intelligence to exploit Windows weaknesses: they helped the Chinese government train hackers — and steal more than 50 MB of secret U.S. government e-mails; Topsec started out in 1995 with funding of just $4,400, and by 2002 had earnings about $440 million; it is now China’s largest provider of information security products and services

  • Chinese cyber spies target British defense official

    A high official in the British Ministry of Defense was targeted by a sophisticated Chinese spear phishing operation that aimed to steal military secrets; the plan was foiled last year when the official became suspicious of an e-mail she received from a contact she had met at a conference

  • China "hijacked" sensitive U.S. Internet traffic to Chinese servers

    Highly sensitive Internet traffic on U.S. government and military Web sites was briefly “hijacked” and routed through Chinese servers earlier this year; for eighteen minutes on 8 April, a Chinese state-owned telecommunications firm rerouted e-mail traffic to and from Web sites of the U.S. Senate, the Department of Defense, along with “many others” including NASA and Department of Commerce

  • Chinese hackers steal South Korean defense secrets

    Chinese hackers have stolen secrets on South Korea’s defense and foreign affairs by using bogus e-mails claiming to come from Seoul officials and diplomats; similar attacks originating in China-based servers briefly crippled U.S. and South Korean government and commercial Web sites in July 2009

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  • NSA threatened AT&T over buying phone gear from China

    The U.S. National Security Agency, worried about Chineses spying, earlier this year warned AT&T that if the company were to go ahead with its decision to purchase equipment for a next-generation phone system from China’s Huawei Technologies, then AT&T would lose all of its U.S. government business; AT&T has decided to buy the gear from Ericsson AB of Sweden and France’s Alcatel-Lucent SA instead

  • MI5: Cyber espionage on the rise, but can be easily beaten

    MI5 says the Internet has made the threat of espionage by foreign countries higher than ever before, but insisted it is “relatively straightforward” to block attempts to steal data; MI5 has previously written to the bosses of big British companies to warn them of the threat online, particularly from hackers with links to the Chinese intelligence services

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  • Chinese government funds research based on stolen U.S. trade secrets

    Chinese national, Kexue Huang, charged with economic espionage involving theft of trade secrets from Dow AgroSciences, a leading U.S. agricultural company; Huang published an article without Dow’s authorization through Hunan Normal University (HNU) in China, which contained Dow trade secrets; the article was based on work supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), an agency of the Chinese government

  • Surge in counterfeit items in Pentagon's supplies

    The U.S. Defense Department’s supply chain is vulnerable to the infiltration of counterfeit parts, potentially jeopardizing the lives of American soldiers; government investigators examined 387 companies and organizations which supply the U.S. Department of Defense, and found 39 percent of these companies and organizations encountered counterfeit electronics during the four-year period 2005-8; the number of counterfeit incidents grew from 3,868 in 2005 to 9,356 in 2008

  • B-2 Stealth bomber engineer convicted of selling stealth technology to China

    A federal jury convicted a former B-2 stealth bomber engineer of helping China design a stealth cruise missile; the case is one of a series of major prosecutions targeting Chinese spying on the United States; in March, Chinese-born engineer Dongfan “Greg” Chung was sentenced to more than fifteen years in prison after he was convicted of six counts of economic espionage; investigators learned about Chung while probing Chi Mak, a defense contractor engineer convicted in 2007 of conspiracy to export U.S. defense technology to China; Mak was sentenced to twenty-four years in prison in 2008

  • Lawmakers say Chinese investment in a U.S. steel mill poses national security risks

    A Chinese steel company — China’s fourth largest — plans to invest in a Mississippi-based steel maker; this is the first investment by a Chinese company in a U.S. mill; fifty U.S. lawmakers write the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury urging him to block the deal; they argue that the investment poses a national security risk as Anshan Steel is controlled by the Chinese government

  • Industrial espionage puts German companies, jobs at risk

    Companies failing to protect themselves from external attack risk losing their competitive edge; in the information age, the threat of industrial espionage is all too real, with thousands of jobs at stake in Germany

  • Lebanon: alleged Israeli spy had access to "most significant segment" of cell phone network

    Lebanon arrested a high-level employee of one of the two Lebanese mobile phone networks, saying he has been working for Israeli intelligence since 1996; the authorities say he may have planted monitoring devices allowing the Israelis to tap directly into the Alfa network, one of the two major cell phone companies operating in Lebanon

  • Chinese nationals convicted of illegally exporting military technology to China

    The Chinese broad campaign of stealing U.S. military and commercial technology intensifies, but so does the rate of conviction of Chinese and American nationals who are the foot soldiers in this campaign; two Chinese nationals are convicted in Massachusetts for illegally delivering to China electronics components used in military radar and electronic warfare

  • Operation targeting counterfeit network hardware from China yield convictions, seizures

    Departments of Justice and DHS announce 30 convictions, more than $143 million in seizures from initiative targeting traffickers in counterfeit network hardware made in China; this counterfeit network hardware is a technological sleeper cell: the Chinese have manufactured counterfeit Cisco routers and switches and offered them at exceedingly low prices; U.S. vendors upgrading or replacing U.S. government IT systems used these counterfeit devices — and the FBI and other government agencies are now worried that the gear offers the Chinese undetectable back-doors into highly secure government and military computer system

  • U.S. worried about China industrial espionage activities during World's Expo

    China has been engaged in a vast, well-coordinated, and resourceful espionage campaign against U.S. and European governments and companies; the systematic stealing of Western military, scientific, and industrial secrets aims to help China short-cut its path to global political and economic hegemony; China is employing its military, intelligence services, trade missions abroad, students sent to foreign universities — and Chinese-born citizens who are sent to form espionage sleeper cells; the mammoth World’s Expo, which opened in Shanghai last Friday, offers the Chinese a golden opportunity to steal even more intellectual property on the cheap