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Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom
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outside the country compromising these systems could account for a significant
percentage of attacks emanating from Chinese government networks. It is highly doubtful
that the People’s Liberation Army, for example, would launch attacks from accounts so
easily identified. However, civilian hackers could find these compromised machines
excellent launching pads for attacks.
Finally, a further blurring of the lines between civilian and government activities is the way
the government will tend to co-opt public facilities and draft them into military service. In
2003, Dongshan District of Guangzhou, one of the major science and technology centers
in the southern region, spent $54,000 to turn the provincial telecommunications company,
data communications bureau, microwave communications bureau, and Southern Satellite
Telecommunications Services Corporation into a militia information warfare battalion.
While these public facilities were becoming an official unit in the militia battalion, others
such as NetEase Guangdong and the China Unicom Paging Company in Guangzhou were
being brought on board, even though they did not have an established mission.
The Guangdong area has been cited as one of the major areas for “governmentsponsored”
hacking, and the activities of groups such as these may be adding to the
confusion of what is State organized and what is civilian.
I hope that this brief overview of the technology behind these targeted malware attacks,
and consideration of who might be responsible for them has proved interesting and
informative - particularly to those whose organizations have been recently attacked.
Journalists traveling to Beijing in August need to be aware of the dangers online in China.
Media organizations have been very recently targeted by Chinese hackers - both through
stealthy cyber-espionage, and less subtle denial of service attacks on CNN, for example.
Also, you may wish to report on these issues. If, in the future, you find your organization
has been attacked in the ways I have outlined here, please, don’t hesitate to get in touch:
jamyang@08310.org
My thanks to Mikko H. Hypponen, Maarten Van Horenbeeck and Scott Henderson.