Thursday, November 15, 2012

Chinese state-run cyber attacks pose most significant global cyber threat, congressional report says

China’s government carried out numerous cyber attacks against United States government and private sector computers this year and has emerged as the most significant threat in cyberspace, according to a congressional commission report made public Wednesday.
“In 2012, Chinese state-sponsored actors continued to exploit government, military, industrial, and nongovernmental computer systems,” the report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “Any individual penetration remains difficult to attribute, but security researchers are increasingly able to group exploitations into campaigns based on common features and gain better insight into those responsible.”
The report said Chinese cyber attack capabilities “are improving significantly.”
“Irrespective of sophistication, the volume of exploitation attempts yielded enough successful breaches to make China the most threatening actor in cyberspace,” the report said.
The report identified Chinese military and intelligence organizations as the most sophisticated players in the cyber warfare efforts along with quasi-official cyber militias and other organized cyber attackers such as Chinese state-run information technology and telecommunications firms.
Cyber espionage is carried out mainly by Chinese intelligence organs.
The commission also warned that U.S. industrial supply chains remain vulnerable to Chinese government hacking.
“Many components of defense systems and telecommunications infrastructure are manufactured in China or sourced from Chinese entities,” the report said. “This yields active problems with counterfeit and substandard components and raises the potential for the introduction into critical systems of intentionally subverted components.”

Read more: http://freebeacon.com/china-no-1-cyber-threat/

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