WASHINGTON/BEIJING: Suspicion is growing that operatives in China, rather than India, were behind the hacking of emails of an official US commission that monitors relations between the United States and China, US officials said.
News of the hacking of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission surfaced earlier this month when an amateur "hacktivist" group purporting to operate in India published what it said was a memo from an Indian Military Intelligence unit to which extracts from commission emails were attached.
But US officials who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said the roundabout way the commission's emails were obtained strongly suggests the intrusion originated in China, possibly by amateurs, and not from India's spy service.
A large cache of raw email data from the security breach, reviewed by Reuters, indicates that the principal target of the intruders was not the commission, but instead a Washington-based non-governmental pro-trade group called the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC).
The trade council is headed by William Reinsch, a former top US Commerce Department official who until recently served as the US-China commission's chairman.
A large proportion of the raw email traffic downloaded by the hackers consists of messages to and from Reinsch at his NFTC email address. Many of the emails were spam, but some related to the work of the commission, which was set up by Congress to take a critical look at a wide range of US dealings with China.
Reinsch told Reuters that the NFTC first became aware in November that large quantities of its message traffic had been hacked. He said that law enforcement authorities, including the FBI, had been quickly notified. The FBI has declined comment.
Reinsch said he could think of "no particular reason" why the Indian government or Indian hackers would be interested in him.
By contrast, he and several other U.S. officials said that Chinese hackers, whether amateur or directly affiliated with Chinese government, would have great interest in the US-China commission's activities, both public and private.
SOFT TARGET
Sources familiar with the hacking and the related investigation said they draw two inferences from the fact that the principal target of the hack appears to have been Reinsch's email account at NFTC.
First, the sources said they found it difficult to believe anyone connected with India would have taken the time or effort to track down Reinsch or his NFTC account, whereas his chairmanship of the US-China commission made him a potential major target for Chinese hackers.
Secondly, said the sources, the fact that Reinsch's NFTC emails were the principal target suggests that whoever hacked them was hunting for a soft target with poor cyber-security.
That fits a pattern of what is known as a blended attack: sophisticated hackers often plan attacks in multiple stages, targeting the systems of government officials and corporate executives by first breaching less-secure systems of people with whom they regularly communicate.
indiatimes.com
News of the hacking of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission surfaced earlier this month when an amateur "hacktivist" group purporting to operate in India published what it said was a memo from an Indian Military Intelligence unit to which extracts from commission emails were attached.
But US officials who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said the roundabout way the commission's emails were obtained strongly suggests the intrusion originated in China, possibly by amateurs, and not from India's spy service.
A large cache of raw email data from the security breach, reviewed by Reuters, indicates that the principal target of the intruders was not the commission, but instead a Washington-based non-governmental pro-trade group called the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC).
The trade council is headed by William Reinsch, a former top US Commerce Department official who until recently served as the US-China commission's chairman.
A large proportion of the raw email traffic downloaded by the hackers consists of messages to and from Reinsch at his NFTC email address. Many of the emails were spam, but some related to the work of the commission, which was set up by Congress to take a critical look at a wide range of US dealings with China.
Reinsch told Reuters that the NFTC first became aware in November that large quantities of its message traffic had been hacked. He said that law enforcement authorities, including the FBI, had been quickly notified. The FBI has declined comment.
Reinsch said he could think of "no particular reason" why the Indian government or Indian hackers would be interested in him.
By contrast, he and several other U.S. officials said that Chinese hackers, whether amateur or directly affiliated with Chinese government, would have great interest in the US-China commission's activities, both public and private.
SOFT TARGET
Sources familiar with the hacking and the related investigation said they draw two inferences from the fact that the principal target of the hack appears to have been Reinsch's email account at NFTC.
First, the sources said they found it difficult to believe anyone connected with India would have taken the time or effort to track down Reinsch or his NFTC account, whereas his chairmanship of the US-China commission made him a potential major target for Chinese hackers.
Secondly, said the sources, the fact that Reinsch's NFTC emails were the principal target suggests that whoever hacked them was hunting for a soft target with poor cyber-security.
That fits a pattern of what is known as a blended attack: sophisticated hackers often plan attacks in multiple stages, targeting the systems of government officials and corporate executives by first breaching less-secure systems of people with whom they regularly communicate.
indiatimes.com
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