China-based hacking offers evidence of global cyber war

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/china-based-hacking-of-760-companies-shows-global-cyber-war/2011/12/13/gIQA2WMEsO_story.html

By Michael Riley and John Walcott
Bloomberg
December 13, 2011

Google Inc. and Intel Corp. were logical targets for China-based 
hackers, given the solid-gold intellectual property data stored in their 
computers. An attack by cyber spies on iBahn, a provider of Internet 
services to hotels, takes some explaining.

iBahn provides broadband business and entertainment access to guests of 
Marriott International Inc. and other hotel chains, including 
multinational companies that hold meetings on site. Breaking into 
iBahn’s networks, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official 
familiar with the matter, may have let hackers see millions of 
confidential e-mails, even encrypted ones, as executives from Dubai to 
New York reported back on everything from new product development to 
merger negotiations.

More worrisome, hackers might have used iBahn’s system as a launching 
pad into corporate networks that are connected to it, using traveling 
employees to create a backdoor to company secrets, said Nick Percoco, 
head of Trustwave Corp.’s SpiderLabs, a security firm.

The hackers’ interest in companies as small as Salt Lake City-based 
iBahn illustrates the breadth of China’s spying against firms in the 
U.S. and elsewhere. The networks of at least 760 companies, research 
universities, Internet service providers and government agencies were 
hit over the last decade by the same elite group of China-based cyber 
spies. The companies, including firms such as Research in Motion Ltd. 
and Boston Scientific Corp., range from some of the largest corporations 
to niche innovators in sectors like aerospace, semiconductors, 
pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, according to intelligence data 
obtained by Bloomberg News.

[...]

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