SReinmiller+Blog-China+Hacking

= Topic: China Hacking: An Act in Warfare =

Post updates here:
March 25, 2013

As of March 3, 2013 a new article posted from the New York Times continued to explain further exactly what the Chinese hackers are looking for. According the article the hacking group is either looking to "cut off" energy supplies and shut down the power grid of the United States. On the other hand they may just be snooping around our technologies looking for secrets to help their own energy companies.

Surprisingly some officials believe that the nation's "infrastructure" is no longer China but Iran. Iran is retaliating for the Stuxnet virus which was created by the Untied States. The threat is not as serious as China since there are holes in the Iranian technical skills. Everyone realizes that attacks of all different kinds are rising. New York Times states that, "The Department of Homeland Security has been responding to intrusions on oil pipelines and electric power organizations at "an alarming rate."" In 2011 there were a 198 attacks on the nations critical infrastructure systems, this resulted in a 52% increase on the number of attacks.

McAfee a security firm have discovered from their researches that in 2011 five multinational oil and gas companies had been hacked by the Chinese. According to these researchers they believe that the hacking campaign was called Night Dragon and had affected over a dozen energy industry companies. Researches also proposed that if the hackers were looking to blow up a pipeline or taken down the U.S. power grid they would have done it in a different way.

President Obama still has been very short on how the United States should respond to these attacks. Everyone apart of the administration agrees that they should not retaliate by cyber or physical theft of secrets. Also a continuing debate is whether or not the president should order our military retaliation for major attacks that cause a threat to America society.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/us/us-weighs-risks-and-motives-of-hacking-by-china-or-iran.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Christopher Cuascut - Cutting off the power would be damage the US, or any nation, heavily. Hopefully, more action against these attacks will be take. Great blog.

March 18, 2013

To continue further with information pertaining to China hacking corporate business throughout the U.S. according to NY Times Mandiant which is an American computer security firm has been able to track certain individuals that are apart of the Chinese groups. Also, Mandiant was able to give a copy to The New York Times saying that, "they hoped to bring visibility to the issues addressed in the report."

Recently back in February officials from the Chinese embassy in Washington again continued to argue that their government does not allow computer hacking, and that this activity is illegal. They went on further to discuss how they feel as if they are a victim of computer hacking. They point specifically at the United States saying that they are many hacking groups present in the United States. On the other hand, the amount of Chinese hacking attacks has dramatically increased says security researchers.

According to another site The Economist, they give relevant information on how these investigations of Chinese hackers has been going on for over six years, and has finally been able to track an individual on the Chinese hacker group with an undercover name such as Ugly Gorilla and SuperHard. They have been located in residential Shangai that is the home to Unit 61398 of the People's Liberation Army.

Referring back to the NY Times, the United States "find itself in something of an asymmetrical digital war with China." One senior defense official says, "In the Cold War we were focused everyday on the nuclear command centers around Moscow. Today it's fair to say that we worry as much about the computer servers in Shanghai."

Even Obama has been asked to speak about this issue within the Untied States. In his speech he did not specifically direct it to a certain country but simply said, "We know foreign countries and companies swipe our corporate secrets," "Now our enemies are also seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions, and our air-traffic control system. We cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/technology/chinas-army-is-seen-as-tied-to-hacking-against-us.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21572200-if-china-wants-respect-abroad-it-must-rein-its-hackers-getting-ugly

Christopher Cuascut- With everything becoming increasingly connected to each other, you would think we would people would be more concerned about this. Great article.

March 11, 2013

 In recent news, Mandiant a security firm was able to detect a “high-powered” cyber attack against American firms from a group of the Chinese Army as the source. No one has been able to calculate the full cost of these attacks, but the evidence against People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continues to increase. The strength of this invasion of theft is harmful and there is no response by the U.S. government.

 People who work for well known firms in America are the ones who are being hacked by the Chinese. It is said that if you do anything via email off of your work computer, the Chinese hackers are now able to find out everything about you, from you personal information to your financial data. This certain type of hacking is a huge threat to our manufacturing base in more important our economy. The Australian says the hacking is based in the Pudong Area of Shanghai. Also, thousands of computer hackers are said to be working their. These hackings have been taking place since 2006 and over 100 companies have been affected.

 According to the Huffington post which is very interesting, is they state “if the Iranian Army was identified as the perpetrators of the attack, we’d all be enjoying footage of bombs, and cruise missiles reducing their HQ to a smoldering pile of rubble.

 Although, we as Americans treat the Chinese differently. China is treated differently because corporate American and U.S. officials make a lot of money in the business of offshoring American jobs to China.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-autry/china-hacking_b_2787043.html http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/forget-conventional-warfare-chinese-hacking-is-greater-danger/story-fng7vg0p-1226585422127

Ian Ebling- I completely agree with the third column about how if anyone wanted to get in a nuclear war with us, we would destroy them. Very good article that i found very interesting. Keep it up and you will have alot more people reading your articles.

Jordan Sangrey- This is interesting because is seems like everything we buy is made in China. I wonder why they would want to hack into the business accounts of one of their biggest customers. It will be interesting to see how this story progresses and how the US handles it.

Eric Fraunfelter- It is scary once you really understand how vulnerable your information is when it is connected through the internet. China hacking into our accounts and tampering with our money is the last thing we need during the recession. Remember to keep a consistently updated copy of your blog in GoogleDocs so that your hard work is backed up if it gets deleted.

Katie Carle- It's very interesting and a little scary that China can have access to some of the United State's confidential information. It also is dangerous that China wants to cut off our energy supplies and other things and I'm not sure how they benefit from this, but I'm sure we will not let this happen with the technology we have. Great topic and information!