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The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

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Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#71

Post by darawk »

oefrha wrote: post #34
toshk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I remember once I was watching the news and they claimed a hack was done by Russians because they found Russian comments in the code. That didn't sound very convincing :). The ledger evidence sounds better. At the same time in this case I would be more surprised if the PRC , since their need for control, and since the stakes are extremely high, wasn't doing such things.

Similarly, I recall a strain of malware being attributed to Chinese hackers because variable names were in Chinese; then when you actually inspect the code, it's clearly Unicode gibberish generated by an obfuscator... That is to say, the hackers weren't even trying to be misleading, it was just a result of obfuscation reminiscent of mojibake. (I read the article on Ars Technica but don't remember enough details to fi…

Do keep in mind that intelligence services are probably not being fully transparent about how they know the source of an attack. They wouldn't want to reveal their methods, to avoid them becoming unreliable in the future.

Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#72

Post by throwanem »

antpls wrote: post #69
orbifold wrote: post #37

Just for additional context several super computing sites in Europe were attacked a few weeks ago and are still down, among them PizDaint at CSCS, which ranks 6th in the world, several super computing sites in Germany (FZ Juelich) and so on. I think no-one wishes this to turn into a kinetic war, but for all we know besides the economic warfare that has been going on for quite some time, this feels like we are in an a…

Do you have a reference about those attacks? A press release or a link to a blog maybe?

https://www.hpcwire.com/2020/05/18/hacking-streak-forces-eur...

Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#73

Post by raverbashing »

pessimizer wrote: post #6

Why would they be press-releasing this other than to drive public opinion against China?

Oh poor China... They just want to do whatever they want without anyone messing with them and publicizing it.

Maybe because as opposed to Chinese and other oppressive governments, the western press actually makes the people informed. Sometimes.

Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#74

Post by ciarannolan »

bt1a wrote: post #15
pessimizer wrote: post #6

Why would they be press-releasing this other than to drive public opinion against China?

While the admin is currently pushing a very negative image against China, I do not believe the FBI would do that so lightly.

The problem is that this administration has shown time and again that they're willing to corrupt American institutions (like the FBI) when it suits them.

Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#75

Post by orbifold »

RobertoG wrote: post #50
orbifold wrote: post #37

Just for additional context several super computing sites in Europe were attacked a few weeks ago and are still down, among them PizDaint at CSCS, which ranks 6th in the world, several super computing sites in Germany (FZ Juelich) and so on. I think no-one wishes this to turn into a kinetic war, but for all we know besides the economic warfare that has been going on for quite some time, this feels like we are in an a…

we are in all out conflict with China because some super computing sites were "attacked"? That's not a very responsible statement.

Well this is clearly a hostile act during a time in which several European countries have declared medical emergencies. They were not just "attacked" but have been completely offline for almost two weeks now (https://www.hpcwire.com/2020/05/18/hacking-streak-forces-eur...).

In Germany it is (incident was 15.05) - NEMO (Freiburg) - bwUniCluster 2.0 and ForHLR II (Karlsruhe) - Hawk (Stuttgart) - Leibniz Supercomputing Center (Munich) - JURECA, JUWELS und JUDAC (FZ Jülich) - Taurus (Dresden)

Switzerland shutdown access to all of CSCS (16.05).

Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#77

Post by natechols »

dcolkitt wrote: post #64
tree3 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anytime the CCP does something bad, there's always someone like you to downplay it in the comments...

[flagged]

I agree that public research should be publicly available, and Covid research in particular, but having worked in biomedicine, I also know that making data available to, and consumable by, everyone else takes actual work and dedicated resources, and most of the time when the data aren't easily downloadable it's usually not because someone doesn't want to share, but because they have other work to do and are possibly still collecting data. Unfortunately some of those resources now have to be spent recovering from a hacking attempt instead of actual science. Speaking as an American, I would prefer that the CIA and NSA please NOT hack Covid vaccine research in other countries based on stupid assumptions.

Again, to deflect the obvious misstatements of how IP actually works, anyone who wants to sell a vaccine to the world will need to produce large amounts of data and presumably a formal patent which will actually document how it is made. How the licensing actually shakes out is a complicated question and will no doubt be as acrimonious as everyone expects, but as long as we're at the early stages these arguments are a waste of time and effort. Get the vaccine(s) working, do it right, do it without fing over the rest of the world, then* worry about whether IP rights or excessive secrecy are holding us back.

Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#78

Post by jorblumesea »

free_rms wrote: post #68
jorblumesea wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the difference is that the West is engaging in surveillance and not sabotage. If the CCP was found to contaminate or corrupt data, that is a far step above Western norms. Also, the West mostly focuses on international relations and national security concerns, whereas the CCP also participates in economic sabotage and IP transfer. For example, it would be big news for the US to have been caught hacking Huawei,…

First off, the west's covert activities are not limited to benign surveillance. Second off.. aside from the total lack of evidence, why would the Chinese be interested in sabotage here? American discovery of a vaccine means they can rip it off, they're definitely not gonna be paying anyone for it. If we're selling it at exorbitant prices while they give it away practically for free to African countries, that's a huge…

> the west's covert activities are not limited to benign surveillance.

Compared to the CCP, it's fairly benign. The example you gave, Merkel's phone, is a textbook example. Spy all you want, but we're not stealing IP or sabotaging power grids (to my knowledge). We're not interfering with other countries' covid response or possibly corrupting medical records.

> why would the Chinese be interested in sabotage here?

Presumably, because it gives China a geopolitical edge in the international sphere. Think about how damaging it would be to not only be the country where the virus started, but also not having a valid vaccine. By slowing down Western vaccine efforts and boosting their own, they can regain the upper hand and make China look strong. "Strong China" keeps those leaders in power, and they'll do whatever they can to project the feeling that they're in control and "better" than the West. Also, China is posturing itself to be a counterpoint to the West, but they need to show themselves as somehow a viable candidate for that.

So a wide variety of reasons, but it's easy to see why they would do this.

Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#79

Post by vkou »

darawk wrote: post #71
oefrha wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, I recall a strain of malware being attributed to Chinese hackers because variable names were in Chinese; then when you actually inspect the code, it's clearly Unicode gibberish generated by an obfuscator... That is to say, the hackers weren't even trying to be misleading, it was just a result of obfuscation reminiscent of mojibake. (I read the article on Ars Technica but don't remember enough details to fi…

Do keep in mind that intelligence services are probably not being fully transparent about how they know the source of an attack. They wouldn't want to reveal their methods, to avoid them becoming unreliable in the future.

Which makes it impossible to have an open, informed discussion on the subject.

Instead, you get tribalist arguments over who believes which secret police.

Re: The FBI investigating hacking of Covid research by “PRC-affiliated cyber actors”

#80

Post by jorblumesea »

vkou wrote: post #70
jorblumesea wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the difference is that the West is engaging in surveillance and not sabotage. If the CCP was found to contaminate or corrupt data, that is a far step above Western norms. Also, the West mostly focuses on international relations and national security concerns, whereas the CCP also participates in economic sabotage and IP transfer. For example, it would be big news for the US to have been caught hacking Huawei,…

> I think the difference is that the West is engaging in surveillance and not sabotage. 1. Stuxnet. 2. What makes you think this is not surveillance? 3. What makes you certain that CIA black budgets are not spent on sabotage? They don't exactly let anyone audit them...

1. Iranian nuclear capabilities are a "legitimate target". For whatever that is worth. We're not sabotaging medical records or taking down Tehran's power grid.

2. Textbook definition of surveillance is watching and collecting. "Active measures" are "spy stuff" but usually far outside of the scope of intelligence collection.

3. Fair point, no way to know. But from what has come out from PRISM/NSA leaks, it honestly looks that the US intel community is mostly postured for data collection.

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