Cyberwar hits Canada

[GostHacked]

http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2011/02/16/pol-weston-hacking.html

The government initially issued a terse statement, passing it off as merely an “attempt to access” federal networks, and has refused to release any further information.

But sources have confirmed the attackers successfully penetrated the computer systems at the federal government’s two main economic nerve centres, the Finance Department and Treasury Board.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110216/china-hackers-canada-finance-department-110216/

Chinese government hackers have unsuccessfully attempted to break into the Canadian finance department's computers to obtain secret economic data, CTV News has learned.

Sources say the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has advised government officials not to name China as the country where the attacks were launched, or even talk about the situation.

It's unclear how many attempts have been made to break into the finance department's computer network.

http://www.canada.com/news/Chinese+cyber+attack+targets+Canadian+government+departments/4298184/story.html

I expect more in the days to come.

[bjre]

Western media's misleading information.

Even some cyber attack is from China, why it is the government should be blamed? there are so many foreign invested company there, it is easy for foreign crime group to control some hacker there.

[bjre]

And another possibility. Maybe CIA did it ask some of its agent attach from China, then make all media to report it. So that they can ask for more tax dollars. And their Canadian counterpart love some more tax dollars too.

[Michael Hardner]

If the CIA wants Canadian documents from Harper, I'm pretty sure that they can just ask for them.

[bjre]

If the CIA wants Canadian documents from Harper, I'm pretty sure that they can just ask for them.

In that way, it will not good for it to ask for more tax dollars.

[William Ashley]

REPOST:

Does this mean no election?

Or that the chinese wrote this years budget? . . .

Why would the government connect their departmental computers to the internet.. there are far more secure ways of organizing data (has me wonder how much of their computers are made in China...)

None the less it is totally irresponsible security management policy on the part of the govenrment if any sensitive data can be obtained from "the internet"

Any clasified information (and private information should be clasified) should only be dispensed on request that is approved migrated from the secure system and made available to the authenticated requestor. Otherwise the government's internal infrastructure should be utiliized, and all RFI's should be audited.

It is just bad management on the part of the government if something like this could happen - private information should not be able to stream to the internet .

This reflects as a tremendous error on the part of the government in failing to be professional. The NSLSC was also "broken" and their computer system shut down the begining of February.

Edited February 17, 2011 by William Ashley

[GostHacked]

If the CIA wants Canadian documents from Harper, I'm pretty sure that they can just ask for them.

I am sure they can, but what if we say no?

[GostHacked]

More crap!!!

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110217/china-hackers-canada-finance-110217/

Chinese hackers not only attacked key federal departments: they also cracked into the computer system of the House of Commons, targeting MPs with large ethnic Chinese constituencies, CTV News has learned.

Sources say Canada's secret cyber spy agency -- the Communications Security Establishment -- tracked the hacking operation to the Chinese embassy in Ottawa and to computer servers in Beijing.

[xul]

If the CIA wants Canadian documents from Harper, I'm pretty sure that they can just ask for them.

Even Canadian MPs can not get necessary information from the government.

Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page: Government secrecy hampering MPs' jobs

The Conservative government's secrecy is hampering parliamentarians' ability to evaluate new legislation, Kevin Page told a House of Commons committee.

He said MPs are losing their ability to perform their constitutionally mandated jobs because of the lack of information available about the cost of new bills.

"There is a genuine concern that Parliament is losing control of its fiduciary responsibilities of approving financial authorities of public monies as afforded in the Constitution," he said.

Maybe Canadian MPs have to hire hackers to get what they need to do their job...

Edited February 18, 2011 by xul

[xul]

Western media's misleading information.

Even some cyber attack is from China, why it is the government should be blamed? there are so many foreign invested company there, it is easy for foreign crime group to control some hacker there.

You are correct.

Technically, they may find the attack coming from China, but they have no way to figure out who is behind it. They even have no way to know if the hacker was in China when the attack happened.

Since there are too many poor internet users in China who favours "free software" which they download from internet, their computers can easily be controlled by hackers. The hacker who started the attack might not be a Chinese or might not live in China. He or she can remotely control his victims's computes via internet to launch the attack.

[Saipan]

Western media's misleading information.

According to Beijing dictators.

Even some cyber attack is from China, why it is the government should be blamed?

The rulling dictators. They know exactly what is going on over the internet there. They control even google access in China. They hacked also into The Dalai Lama computer system in Northern India.

[Mr.Canada]

I'm confident that cyber attacks occur from virtually every country attempting to access almost any country on the globe at one point or another. Yes, I believe CSIS or some branch of the Canadian Intelligence community has some hackers spying as well. It wouldn't surprise me, let's just say that.

China may have gotten got caught this time is all.

[eyeball]

Anyone else recall the various trade junkets to China that our government has sponsored over the years, I remember one in particular that included Canadian Internet security experts from the Justice Institute of all places. This was around the time that China was building it's Great Firewall.

In Ethiopia, where we're allies with China in the WOT, China supplies the Ethiopian government with software and expertise that allows them interfere with the opposition parties from using email and cell-phone communications.

Thankfully our government is focused on more important things like broadening our criminal code and building more prisons. Trading with Canada is finally starting to show real results for China, we're becoming more like them all the time.

[Mr.Canada]

Thankfully our government is focused on more important things like broadening our criminal code and building more prisons. Trading with Canada is finally starting to show real results for China, we're becoming more like them all the time.

I think the government can walk and chew gum at the same time eyeball. Meaning I think they can focus on more then one thing at a time. I would guess that most of what goes on in government isn't released or reported on. I doubt they just sit around until Question Period twiddling their thumbs getting ready to look intense.

[William Ashley]

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20110218_foreign_hackers_attack_canadian_government/

or they are just using china as a cover and they really did it??

Edited February 19, 2011 by William Ashley

[Smallc]

I'm confident that cyber attacks occur from virtually every country attempting to access almost any country on the globe at one point or another. Yes, I believe CSIS or some branch of the Canadian Intelligence community has some hackers spying as well.

That would be the ultra secret Communications Security Establishment of Canada.

[GostHacked]

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20110218_foreign_hackers_attack_canadian_government/

or they are just using china as a cover and they really did it??

Interesting article. I've always said, that the more connected things are the more risk of this kind of problems we are going to see. As an IT professional, I deal with much of this stuff on a weekly basis.

There are a lot of PC illiterate people out there and for the most part they think that this can't happen to them or it can't happen in general. It took only simple phishing email/virus to come into our systems and cause havoc. It only took one person to click it to get around all the security measures that are in place. I see this all the time.

Certain systems need to be completely isolated from the Internet. If you want to guarantee security of information.

Again, I expect more of this to happen in the coming months. Watch for it (hopefuly I am wrong).