China blocks U.S. from cyber warfare

Tue May 12 09:21:59 PDT 2009

If the article sounds like alarmist bullshit, it's because it is.
The s00per-s3kr1t Kylin is trivially modified FreeBSD.

On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 06:02:01PM +0200, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/12/china-bolsters-for-cyber-arms-race-with-us/print/ 
> 
> Tuesday, May 12, 2009
> 
> China blocks U.S. from cyber warfare
> 
> Bill Gertz (Contact)
> 
> China has developed more secure operating software for its tens of millions
> of computers and is already installing it on government and military systems,
> hoping to make Beijing's networks impenetrable to U.S. military and
> intelligence agencies.
> 
> The secure operating system, known as Kylin, was disclosed to Congress during
> recent hearings that provided new details on how China's government is
> preparing to wage cyberwarfare with the United States.
> 
> "We are in the early stages of a cyber arms race and need to respond
> accordingly," said Kevin G. Coleman, a private security specialist who
> advises the government on cybersecurity. He discussed Kylin during a hearing
> of the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission on April 30.
> 
> The deployment of Kylin is significant, Mr. Coleman said, because the system
> has "hardened" key Chinese servers. U.S. offensive cyberwar capabilities have
> been focused on getting into Chinese government and military computers
> outfitted with less secure operating systems like those made by Microsoft
> Corp.
> 
> "This action also made our offensive cybercapabilities ineffective against
> them, given the cyberweapons were designed to be used against Linux, UNIX and
> Windows," he said.
> 
> The secure operating system was disclosed as computer hackers in China - some
> of them sponsored by the communist government and military - are engaged in
> aggressive attacks against the United States, said officials and experts who
> disclosed new details of what was described as a growing war in cyberspace.
> 
> These experts say Beijing's military is recruiting computer hackers for its
> forces, including one specialist identified in congressional testimony who
> set up a company that was traced to attacks that penetrated Pentagon
> computers.
> 
> Chinese Embassy spokesman Wang Baodong declined immediate comment. But Jiang
> Yu, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said April 23 that the reports of
> Chinese hacking into Pentagon computers were false.
> 
> "Relevant authorities of the Chinese government attach great importance to
> cracking down on cybercrimes," Ms. Jiang said. "We believe it is extremely
> irresponsible to accuse China of being the source of attacks prior to any
> serious investigation."
> 
> Mr. Coleman, a computer security specialist at Technolytics and a consultant
> to the director of national intelligence and U.S. Strategic Command, said
> Chinese state or state-affiliated entities are on a wartime footing in
> seeking electronic information from the U.S. government, contractors and
> industrial computer networks.
> 
> Mr. Coleman said in an interview that China's Kylin system was under
> development since 2001 and the first computers to use it are government and
> military servers that were converted beginning in 2007.
> 
> Additionally, Mr. Coleman said, the Chinese have developed a secure
> microprocessor that, unlike U.S.-made chips, is known to be hardened against
> external access by a hacker or automated malicious software.
> 
> "If you add a hardened microchip and a hardened operating system, that makes
> a really good solid platform for defending infrastructure [from external
> attack]," Mr. Coleman said.
> 
> U.S. operating system software, including Microsoft, used open-source and
> offshore code that makes it less secure and vulnerable to software "trap
> doors" that could allow access in wartime, he explained.
> 
> "What's so interesting from a strategic standpoint is that in the cyberarena,
> China is playing chess while we're playing checkers," he said.
> 
> Asked whether the United States would win a cyberwar with China, Mr. Coleman
> said it would be a draw because China, the United States and Russia are
> matched equally in the new type of warfare.
> 
> Rafal A. Rohozinski, a Canadian computer security specialist who also
> testified at the commission hearing, explained how he took part in a two-year
> investigation that uncovered a sophisticated worldwide computer attack
> network that appeared to be a Chinese-government-sponsored program called
> GhostNet, whose electronic strikes were traced to e-mails from Hainan island
> in the South China Sea.
> 
> GhostNet was able to completely take over targeted computers and then
> download documents and information. Some of the data stolen were sensitive
> financial and visa information on foreign government networks at overseas
> embassies, Mr. Rohozinski said.
> 
> The China-based computer network used sophisticated break-in techniques that
> are generally beyond the capabilities of nongovernment hackers, Mr.
> Rohozinski said.
> 
> Using surveillance techniques, the investigators observed GhostNet hackers
> stealing sensitive computer documents from embassy computers and
> nongovernmental organizations.
> 
> "It was a do-it-yourself signals intelligence operation," Mr. Rohozinski said
> of the network, which took over about 1,200 computers in 103 nations,
> targeted specifically at overseas Tibetans linked to the exiled Dalai Lama.
> 
> Mr. Rohozinski, chief executive officer of the SecDev Group and an advisory
> board member at the Citizen Lab at the Munk Center for International Studies
> at the University of Toronto in Ontario, said the GhostNet operation was
> likely part of a much bigger cyberintelligence effort by China to silence or
> thwart its perceived opponents.
> 
> A third computer specialist, Alan Paller, told the Senate Committee on
> Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on April 29 that China's military
> in 2005 recruited Tan Dailin, a graduate student at Sichuan University, after
> he showed off his hacker skills at an annual contest.
> 
> Mr. Paller, a computer security specialist with the SANS Institute, said the
> Chinese military put the hacker through a 30-day, 16-hour-a-day workshop
> "where he learned to develop really high-end attacks and honed his skills."
> 
> A hacker team headed by Mr. Tan then won other computer warfare contests
> against Chinese military units in Chengdu, in Sichuan province.
> 
> Mr. Paller said that a short time later, Mr. Tan "set up a little company. No
> one's exactly sure where all the money came from, but it was in September
> 2005 when he won it. By December, he was found inside [Defense Department]
> computers, well inside DoD computers," Mr. Paller said.
> 
> A Pentagon official said at the time that Chinese military hackers were
> detected breaking into the unclassified e-mail on a network near the office
> of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in June 2007.
> 
> Additional details of Chinese cyberattacks were disclosed recently by Joel F.
> Brenner, the national counterintelligence executive, the nation's most senior
> counterintelligence coordinator.
> 
> Mr. Brenner stated in a speech in Texas last month that cyberactivities by
> China and Russia are widespread and "we know how to deal with these,"
> including widely reported "Chinese penetrations of unclassified DoD
> networks."
> 
> "Those are more sophisticated, though hardly state of the art," he said.
> "Frankly, I worry more about attacks we can't even see, which the Russians
> are good at. The Chinese are relentless and don't seem to care about getting
> caught. And we have seen Chinese network operations inside certain of our
> electricity grids."
> 
> Mr. Brenner said there are minimal concerns about a Chinese cyberattack to
> shut down U.S. banking networks because "they have too much money invested
> here.
> 
> "Our electricity grid? No, not now. But if there were a dust-up over Taiwan,
> these answers might be different," he said.
> 
> Aggressive Chinese computer hacking has been known for years, but the U.S.
> government in the past was reluctant to detail the activities.
> 
> The CIA, for example, sponsored research in the late 1990s that sought to
> minimize Chinese cyberwarfare capabilities, under the idea that highlighting
> such activities would hype the threat.
> 
> Researcher James Mulvenon, for instance, stated during a 1998 conference that
> China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) "does not currently have a coherent
> [information warfare] doctrine, certainly nothing compared to U.S. doctrinal
> writings on the subject."
> 
> Mr. Mulvenon stated in one report that "while PLA [information warfare]
> capabilities are growing, they do not match even the primitive sophistication
> of their underlying strategies."
> 
> Mr. Mulvenon has since changed his views and has identified Chinese
> computer-based warfare as a major threat to the Pentagon.
> 
> Mr. Coleman said China's military is equal to U.S. and Russian military
> cyberwarfare.
> 
> "This is a three-horse race, and it is a dead heat," Mr. Coleman said.
> 
> The National University of China is the strategic adviser to the Chinese
> military on cyberwarfare and the Ministry of Science and Technology, he said.
> 
> Several computer security specialists recently sounded public alarm about the
> growing number of cyberattacks from China and Russia.
> 
> China, based on state-approved writings, thinks the United States is "already
> is carrying out offensive cyberespionage and exploitation against China," Mr.
> Coleman said.
> 
> In response, China is taking steps to protect its own computer and
> information networks so that it can "go on the offensive," he said.
> 
> Mr. Coleman said one indication of the problem was identified by Solutionary,
> a computer security company that in March detected 128 "acts of
> cyberagression" tied to Internet addresses in China.
> 
> "These acts should serve as a warning that clearly indicates just how far
> along China's cyberintelligence collection capabilities are," Mr. Coleman
> said.
> 
> A Pentagon spokesman, Air Force Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh, would not comment
> on Chinese cyberattacks directly but said "cyberspace is a war-fighting
> domain, critical to military operations: We must protect it."
> 
> The Pentagon's Global Information Grid is hit with "millions of scans" - not
> intrusion attempts - every day, Lt. Butterbaugh said.
> 
> "The nature of the threat is large and diverse, and includes recreational
> hackers, self-styled cybervigilantes, various groups with nationalistic or
> ideological agendas, transnational actors, and nation-states," he said. "We
> have seen attempts by a variety of state and nonstate sponsored organizations
> to gain unauthorized access to, or otherwise degrade, DoD information
> systems."
> 
> Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, said
> May 7 that a joint cybercommand is needed under the Pentagon to better
> integrate military and civilian cybercapabilities and defenses. Gen. Chilton
> said he favors creating the joint command at Fort Meade, Md., where the
> National Security Agency is located. The command should be a subunit of
> Strategic Command, located at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb.
> 
> Mr. Gates said last month that the National Security Council is heading up a
> strategic review of U.S. cybercapabilties and is considering creating a
> subunified command within Strategic Command.
> 
> Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Mr. Gates has not decided on the
> subunified command to handle cyberwarfare issues and is waiting for the
> completion of the White House review of cyberwarfare and security issues,
> which is past due from the 60-day deadline imposed by Congress.
> 
> Mr. Gates "thought it would be prudent to wait for their work before looking
> at potential organization structures," Mr. Whitman said in an interview. 
-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
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