Vacuum cleaner espionage
October 25, 2016 3:39 PM Subscribe
The Decline in Chinese Cyberattacks: The Story Behind the Numbers - The Obama administration has been touting a decrease in commercial espionage, but the reality for corporate America may be more complicated.
"For some in the Obama administration, this is proof that using both carrots and sticks to combat Chinese theft of intellectual property—what Carlin called an “all-tools” approach—is working. [...]
But others are not sure the U.S. government should get so much credit. The perceived decline in attacks from China raises a question: why? Former government officials and cybersecurity experts now offer up a range of theories—including a provocative one that questions the extent to which straight commercial cyber-espionage, as opposed to the more targeted spying on military technologies and capabilities that many nations engage in, was ever a priority of the Chinese central government in the first place."
Previously: The mundane face of evil: Chinese state-sponsored hackers
Who is trying to see what it would take to shatter the internet's backbone?
Significant hacking activity targeting journalists at large newspapers
"For some in the Obama administration, this is proof that using both carrots and sticks to combat Chinese theft of intellectual property—what Carlin called an “all-tools” approach—is working. [...]
But others are not sure the U.S. government should get so much credit. The perceived decline in attacks from China raises a question: why? Former government officials and cybersecurity experts now offer up a range of theories—including a provocative one that questions the extent to which straight commercial cyber-espionage, as opposed to the more targeted spying on military technologies and capabilities that many nations engage in, was ever a priority of the Chinese central government in the first place."
Previously: The mundane face of evil: Chinese state-sponsored hackers
Who is trying to see what it would take to shatter the internet's backbone?
Significant hacking activity targeting journalists at large newspapers
Maybe they got what they wanted?
posted by Annika Cicada at 4:06 PM on October 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Annika Cicada at 4:06 PM on October 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
So, we don't notice as many attacks happening as we used to.
That must be a good thing. What else could it possibly mean, after all?
posted by rokusan at 4:08 PM on October 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
That must be a good thing. What else could it possibly mean, after all?
posted by rokusan at 4:08 PM on October 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
That must be a good thing. What else could it possibly mean, after all?
Per Schneier, they could be wrapping up calibrating the weapon.
posted by ryanshepard at 5:59 PM on October 25, 2016
Per Schneier, they could be wrapping up calibrating the weapon.
posted by ryanshepard at 5:59 PM on October 25, 2016
The public berating by USG didn't hurt in the long run, I'd guess, but it sure wasn't the reason for the decrease. Up until about 2012, my Taiwan-related NGO was targeted relentlessly (which I have talked about before). Since 2013, it's been reduced to a trickle. I think I've seen maybe 5 instances this year. Although the stuff I do get is amazingly targeted and really hard to spot, and uses more sophisticated malware than what we used to see.
I really do get the sense that the "vacuum hose" approach had become very inefficient and noisy, particularly as many obvious US targets started to learn what to look for and had hardened their systems. But it's also that the US was an obvious and easy early target. Now the people I work with at defense contractors and tech companies in Taiwan are complaining about the same sort of stuff we used to see 5 years ago.
Nevertheless, it's nice to not have to be dealing with it all the time. I do hope it's NOT just because they have already gotten everything they were looking for...
posted by gemmy at 6:37 PM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
I really do get the sense that the "vacuum hose" approach had become very inefficient and noisy, particularly as many obvious US targets started to learn what to look for and had hardened their systems. But it's also that the US was an obvious and easy early target. Now the people I work with at defense contractors and tech companies in Taiwan are complaining about the same sort of stuff we used to see 5 years ago.
Nevertheless, it's nice to not have to be dealing with it all the time. I do hope it's NOT just because they have already gotten everything they were looking for...
posted by gemmy at 6:37 PM on October 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
With the general economic growth of China a significant portion of corporate level espionage may have reduced by the simple expediency of buying into American companies and owning the data that previously needed to be stolen.
posted by sammyo at 7:19 PM on October 25, 2016
posted by sammyo at 7:19 PM on October 25, 2016
I do hope it's NOT just because they have already gotten everything they were looking for...
Another theory, is that those orchestrating the attacks could not offer a sufficiently high ROI to their backers; probably over-optimistic that one.
posted by rongorongo at 12:07 AM on October 26, 2016
Another theory, is that those orchestrating the attacks could not offer a sufficiently high ROI to their backers; probably over-optimistic that one.
posted by rongorongo at 12:07 AM on October 26, 2016
Or maybe China has realized that they can easily facilitate their own access since they're already building all the Internet of Things things.
My crazy-ass uninformed guess implies that the Mirai botnet's progenitors were also Chinese, though i find it more believable Mirai is what it looks like: created by a third party capitalizing on the embedded vulnerabilities. But this is how it should be if William Gibson was in charge of the global narrative.
posted by at by at 4:54 AM on October 26, 2016
My crazy-ass uninformed guess implies that the Mirai botnet's progenitors were also Chinese, though i find it more believable Mirai is what it looks like: created by a third party capitalizing on the embedded vulnerabilities. But this is how it should be if William Gibson was in charge of the global narrative.
posted by at by at 4:54 AM on October 26, 2016
...since [China is] already building all the Internet of Things things.
That's my gut assumption, too. Take the lessons learned from the NSA's integration of their tech into almost ten years' worth of Cisco switches, then add a couple more orders of magnitude.
If the majority of IoT devices don't have backdoors or future zero-days baked right into the hardware, I'll be quite surprised.
posted by rokusan at 11:50 AM on October 26, 2016
That's my gut assumption, too. Take the lessons learned from the NSA's integration of their tech into almost ten years' worth of Cisco switches, then add a couple more orders of magnitude.
If the majority of IoT devices don't have backdoors or future zero-days baked right into the hardware, I'll be quite surprised.
posted by rokusan at 11:50 AM on October 26, 2016
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posted by monospace at 3:55 PM on October 25, 2016