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Chinese tried to hack Australian Government PCs too
Asia Pacific News.Net
Wednesday 12th September, 2007 (ANI)
Sydney, Sept.12 : The Chinese allegedly tried to hack into highly classified government computer networks in Australia and New Zealand as part of a broader international operation to glean military secrets from Western nations.
According to news.com.au, Canberra refused to either confirm or deny that its agencies, including the Defence Department, had been subject to cyber attack from China.
Government sources, however, acknowledged the challenge of thwarting such assaults.
"It's a serious problem, it's ongoing and it's real," one senior government source said.
Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock is sufficiently concerned about cyber attacks to be spending more than $70 million to improve the e-security of government and private computer networks.
Western intelligence experts say that China has also targeted the US, Canada, Germany and Japan as part of its global intelligence-gathering effort.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday confirmed that foreign intelligence agencies had tried to hack into government computer networks, but said they had not compromised top-secret data banks.
"The assurance I've been given by intelligence agencies is that no classified information has been at risk at all," Miss Clark said.
"We have very smart people to provide protection every time an attack is tried. Obviously we learn from that.
"What I can stress is that absolutely no classified information has ever been penetrated by these attacks."
While Miss Clark knew which countries were involved, she would not name them, saying her Government had not spoken to the nations concerned about the problem.
"That's not the way intelligence matters are handled," she said.
The Financial Times reported last week that Beijing had hacked into the Pentagon's computer network earlier this year - a claim strenuously denied by Beijing.
The alleged cyber attack on the Pentagon came only days after China's intelligence services were accused of hacking into German Chancellor Angela Merkel's office and three other German government ministries.
Similar reports emerged from the United Kingdom and France.  Email this story to a friend
Comments on this story
Anonymous
09-12-07, 09:06 AM |
Chinese tried to hack Australian Government PCs too
Hackers made in China, cheap and high quality.
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waltky
05-30-08, 01:28 AM |
Or was it purposely left un-attended??...
:confused:
Did Chinese hack U.S. official’s laptop?
Thurs., May. 29, 2008 WASHINGTON - Computer was apparently left unattended during trade talks to Beijing
]
U.S. authorities are investigating whether Chinese officials secretly copied the contents of a government laptop computer during a visit to China by Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and used the information to try to hack into Commerce computers, officials and industry experts told The Associated Press.
Surreptitious copying is believed to have occurred when a laptop was left unattended during Gutierrez’s trip to Beijing for trade talks in December, people familiar with the incident told the AP. These people spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident was under investigation. Gutierrez told the AP on Thursday he could not discuss whether or how the laptop’s contents might have been copied.
“Because there is an investigation going on, I would rather not comment on that," he said. “To the extent that there is an investigation going on, those are the things being looked at, those are the questions being asked. I don’t think I should provide any speculative answers."
[url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24880526/:
Can’t confirm or deny an incident[/url]
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