Thursday, September 06, 2007

Chinese cyber war on the UK

Was there any truth to the news reports earlier this week? The Daily Telegraph, for instance, told us:
Up to 10 Whitehall departments are being regularly targeted by computer hackers from countries such as China and Russia who want to find out state secrets, it has emerged.

The news came amid claims that hackers from China's People's Liberation Army had attacked the IT systems of the Foreign Office and other government departments ...

Targeted departments are thought to include the Foreign Office and Home Office.
Spy Blog thinks there was no truth in them for the following reasons:
The Chinese Ambassador in London does not appear to have been sent for and given a stiff Diplomatic Note by Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

There have been no expulsions of Chinese diplomats from the UK.

There do not appear to be any UK Government threats to boycott the Beijing Olympic Games next year, over this alleged cyberspace spying affair, even though that might be the moral thing to do anyway, simply on human rights grounds.

There do not seem to be any alerts or warnings from the UK Government's Computer Emergency Response Team GovCertUK .

There is no warning about any new, custom written Chinese malware from the people based in MI5 the Security Service, who are meant to guard the UK's Critical National Infrastructure, the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure
You can read the Yorkshire Ranter on this too.

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