BIT WARS: Cyber Crime, Hacking & Information Warfare by Thomas Hyslip

Author:Thomas Hyslip [Hyslip, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, pdf
Published: 2015-06-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter References

[1] (Hollis, 2008)

[2] (Matlack, 2014)

[3] (Viswanatha & Menn, 2015)

[4] (Kim & Lerman, 2015)

[5] (Joye, 2014)

[6] (Kushner, 2014)

[7] (Zetter, 2011)

[8] (United Nations, 1945)

7

CYBER ESPIONAGE

Cyber Espionage is a relatively new technique in the long history of intelligence gathering and espionage. The ARPANET was developed in 1969, so at most cyber espionage is only 45 years old [1]. However, in the last 20 years, cyber espionage has grown rapidly. In response to the threat, Congress passed the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, which makes it a crime to steal trade secrets to benefit any foreign government, or to benefit any person other than the owner of the trade secret. These laws are codified in 18 U.S.C., Section 1831, and Section 1832 [2].

Recent news reports and Government press releases show the growing threat of cyber espionage. Most governments and large corporations are likely to face cyber espionage threats from foreign governments and industrial competitors.

On May 19, 2014, the United States Department of Justice took the unusual step of indicting five Chinese military hackers for cyber espionage [3]. It is interesting to note, the five were not indicted for hacking government computers, but rather private industry. The victims included Westinghouse, U.S. subsidiaries of SolarWorld AG, United States Steel Corporation, Allegheny Technologies Inc. (ATI), the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union and Alcoa [3]. This should raise the awareness level of all information security professionals because it shows the government is not the only target, but that private industry is a target of cyber espionage as well.

While China garners all the attention of the media, there are many countries conducting cyber espionage, including the United States. The mission of the National Security Agency is, “collects, processes, and disseminates intelligence information from foreign signals for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes and to support military operations”[4].

The Economist (2014) believes that in addition to China, Russia, and America, many other countries including Pakistan, North Korea, and even some African countries are committing cyber espionage [10]. The low cost of cyber espionage, as compared to traditional espionage, means many more countries can afford to conduct espionage via a cyber technique. There are reports of Iran, Syria, Israel, Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, and many others committing cyber espionage.

If you think about state sponsored cyber espionage in purely monetary figures, it is much cheaper to train a group of government hackers, then to design a stealth aircraft. The government hackers can then steal stealth aircraft designs from another country, and the savings are astronomical. Furthermore, the cost savings continue after the theft because once the government hackers are trained they will continue to steal other designs and trade secrets.

The most detailed account of cyber espionage to date is described in Mandiant’s 2013 report, “APT1: Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units” [5]. Mandiant is an cyber incident response company. From 2006 through 2013, they responded to 141 computer intrusions which they believe are all related. Mandiant reports all 141 intrusion are the work of a single Chinese Intelligence Organization, Unit 61398.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.