[Novalug] [ncaug] Vast Chinese "Ghostnet" spying operation discovered

[John B. Holmblad]

Bonnie,

yes I did. NPR is reporting on it as well.


 I think the article implicitly raises an interesting and important 
moral question about how far any country can and should go, including 
ours,  when it comes to cyber espionage of the kind that is the focus of 
the article.  Are the exploits referred to in that article really that 
much different from putting human "agents" disguised as 
diplomats/tourists/etc (human trojans if you will)  inside of a foreign 
sovereign nation to "report back". Probably not.

And if, in fact, the control "plane" of this espionage network is in 
China, as the article purports, then that also means that Linux is 
probably in the mix, although the article is OS agnostic, given the 
Chinese rate of adoption of Linux  in lieu of {mostly pirated) instances 
of Microsoft OS's.

To me the bigger and more troubling issue raised by this article (and 
mentioned in the NPR coverage) is that, just as with earlier forms of 
malware technology including the tools to study such malware (e.g. 
metasploit), the tools to run these kinds of networks will  trickle down 
to various  groups with nefarious intent of the financial and 
non-financial variety. That is not good for anyone in any country.

 

        1. http://www.metasploit.com/


Best Regards,

 

John Holmblad

 

Televerage International

GSEC Gold,   GCWN Gold,   GAWN,  GGSC-0100,   NSA-IAM,  NSA-IEM

Information security, telecommunications, and information technology 
consulting

 

(M) 703 407 2278

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primary email address:  jholmblad at aol.com

backup email address:  jholmblad at verizon.net

 



Bonnie Dalzell wrote:
> heard about this Ghostnet?
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/technology/29spy.html?_r=1
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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