Canadians find spy network a vast electronic spying that infiltrated computers and stole documents from government

 
Canadians find spy network
March 29, 2009

WASHINGTON - CANADIAN researchers have uncovered a vast electronic spying
operation that infiltrated computers and stole documents from government and
private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, The New
York Times reported on Saturday.

In a report provided to the newspaper, a team from the Munk Center for
International Studies in Toronto said at least 1,295 computers in 103
countries had been breached in less than two years by the spy system, which
it dubbed GhostNet.

Embassies, foreign ministries, government offices and the Dalai Lama's
Tibetan exile centres in India, Brussels, London and New York were among
those infiltrated, said the researchers, who have detected computer
espionage in the past. They found no evidence US government offices were
breached.

The researchers concluded that computers based almost exclusively in China
were responsible for the intrusions, although they stopped short of saying
the Chinese government was involved in the system, which they described as
still active.

'We're a bit more careful about it, knowing the nuance of what happens in
the subterranean realms,' said Ronald Deibert, a member of the Munk research
group, based at the University of Toronto.

'This could well be the CIA or the Russians. It's a murky realm that we're
lifting the lid on.' A spokesman for the Chinese Consulate in New York
dismissed the idea China was involved. 'These are old stories and they are
nonsense,' the spokesman, Wenqi Gao, told the Times. 'The Chinese government
is opposed to and strictly forbids any cybercrime.'

The Toronto researchers began their sleuthing after a request from the
office of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, to examine
its computers for signs of malicious software, or malware.

The network they found possessed remarkable 'Big Brother-style'
capabilities, allowing it, among other things, to turn on the camera and
audio-recording functions of infected computers for potential in-room
monitoring, the report said.

The system was focused on the governments of South Asian and South-east
Asian nations as well as on the Dalai Lama, the researchers said, adding
that computers at the Indian Embassy in Washington were infiltrated and a
Nato computer monitored.

The report will be published in Information Warfare Monitor, an online
publication linked to the Munk Center. At the same time, two computer
researchers at Cambridge University in Britain who worked on the part of the
investigation related to the Tibetans are releasing an independent report,
the Times said.

They do fault China and warned that other hackers could adopt similar
tactics, the Times added. -- REUTERS