China, Russia Steal American High-Tech Data

By siliconindia   |   Monday, 07 November 2011, 16:08 IST
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China, Russia Steal American High-Tech Data
Bangalore: China and Russia have been widely criticized by U.S. Intelligence agencies which claims that cyber-attacks by Chinese and Russian intelligence services, as well corporate hackers in those countries, have swallowed up large amounts of high-tech American research and development data, and that stolen information has helped build their economies. The report, offering the first such detailed public accusations from U.S. officials, said computer attacks by foreign governments are on the rise and represent a "persistent threat to U.S. economic security." "China has recognized the importance of cyber operations as a tool of warfare," the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission says in a report released Nov 20. U.S. government, military, business and economic institutions "are completely dependent on the Internet," the commission said. So are the nation's electric grid, distribution systems for fuel, water supplies, sewage treatment plants air traffic control and banking." "A successful attack on these Internet-connected networks could paralyze the United States," the report says. For years,U.S. officials and experts have been complaining about the intrusion of China and their emanating cyber attacks. But the report that was revealed on Thursday provides some of the sharpest and most direct criticism from the U.S. government about those intrusions. In the report U.S. even accused the Chinese of being "the world's most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage." The report also stated that the most desired were communications, military technologies, clean energy, healthcare, pharmaceuticals and information about scarce natural resources. Of the most, aerospace and aircraft technologies was the most tapped information. However the number of attacks have not been disclosed. U.S. officials did not confirm how many were government sponsored attacks as well. They said that when they traced the attacks it led to the two countries but did not assure who the real culprit was. Last year several attacks in the past year was tracked to the Internet protocol address in China.But it was hard to determine who was behind the attacks.The total loss dues to cyber attacks could not be determined by the officials. Among the examples were the breach of Google Inc.'s networks in January 2010, and an instance where data was stolen from a Fortune 500 manufacturing company during business negotiations when the company was trying to buy a Chinese firm. The breach of data has cost a loss of $50 billion U.S. International Trade Commission and the National Science Foundation has put the value of public and private research and development at about $400 billion in 2009. Attacks from Russia are a "distant second" to those from China, according to the report. But it said Moscow's intelligence services are "conducting a range of activities to collect economic information and technology from U.S. targets." Officials said other nations they would not name are also suspect, and the report suggested that U.S. allies may be using their access to American institutions to acquire economic and technology information.

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