Tag Archive for: Empire

China calls the US an “Empire of Hacking,” citing 2017 Wikileaks files

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Facepalm: The term “Chinese hacker” has become a common saying in pop culture, but it seems the Asian nation has a similar term for the US: the “Empire of Hacking.” The name appears in a new Chinese report that accuses the CIA of using cyberattacks against China and other countries.

As per The Reg, an investigation called “The Matrix” conducted by the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center of China and local cybersecurity firm 360 Total Security has been published in a report titled Empire of Hacking: The US Central Intelligence Agency – Part I.

The report claims that investigators examining a number of cyberattacks within China captured and extracted a large number of Trojans, functional plug-ins, and attack platform samples alleged to be closely associated with the CIA, revealing an “empire of hackers” under US control, writes the South China Morning Post.

“These cyberweapons have undergone strict, standardised, and professional software engineering management, which is uniquely followed by the CIA in developing cyberattack weapons,” the report states.

But many of the findings come from old information gleaned from a 2017 series of leaks on the CIA by Wikileaks, codenamed Vault7. It included details of the agency’s global covert hacking program, the malware it used, and dozens of zero-day weaponized exploits against a wide range of US and European company products, including Apple and Android phones, Windows, and smart TVs, which were exploited so their microphones could be used as listening devices.

“They have now covered almost all internet and IoT assets globally, allowing control over foreign networks and theft of important, sensitive data at any time,” the report said. “Targets of these attacks include critical information infrastructure, aerospace, research institutions, oil and petrochemical industries, large internet companies, and government agencies in various countries. These attacks can be traced back to 2011 and have continued until now.”

The report also mentions the CIA’s history of trying to…

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‘Empire of hacking’ exposed: China Daily editorial

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Although the Central Intelligence Agency had acquired exceptional experience in overthrowing governments by triggering “peaceful evolution” or instigating “color revolutions” in other countries before the emergence of the internet, it is the advancement of information and communication technology, in which the US enjoys huge advantages, that has greatly boosted the intelligence agency’s capability to accomplish its goals in the new century.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union — the United States established the CIA in 1947 to counter Soviet intelligence wings — transformed the former socialist republics in Eastern and Central Europe, and created a golden opportunity for the CIA to trigger “color revolutions” in the region as well as in the Middle East and Central Asia.

The end of the Cold War gave the CIA the reason to help establish the US’ global hegemony by exploiting its advantages in cyberspace to infiltrate, spy on and subvert other countries’ governments.

A report “Empire of Hacking: the US Central Intelligence Agency — Part I” jointly published by China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center and the 360 Total Security, a Chinese cybersecurity company, on Thursday deserves credit for not only its systematic and professional approach to the ugly role of the CIA, but also its advice to the agency’s “victims all around the world” in order to help them better respond to the US’ cyberattacks and manipulations.

The report can also be seen as part of China’s efforts to help build a community with a shared future in cyberspace, because it regards maintaining silence in the face of the CIA’s dirty tricks as being complicit in the US’ overall destructive strategy.

The report says that, working with US internet companies, the CIA provides encrypted network communication services, and reconnects service and on-site command communication tools directly for its proxies in targeted countries and regions. For instance, a software called RIOT, developed and promoted jointly by US companies and the CIA, helps the intelligence agency to remote control its pawns triggering demonstrations and riots in other countries, by ensuring they have reliable…

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World Insights: Unchecked surveillance empire

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(Xinhua) 10:16, April 29, 2023

A huge slogan board stands in front of the U.S. Capitol building during a protest against government surveillance in Washington D.C., capital of the United States, on Oct. 26, 2013. (Xinhua/Fang Zhe)

Analysts say that cyber warfare is one of the tools used in its “hybrid warfare.” Like economic sanctions, terrorist activities, psychological warfare, and military actions, it is a means by which the United States interferes in other countries and achieves its own political goals.

BEIJING, April 28 (Xinhua) — The United States is notorious for its cyber record. Just ask the National Security Agency (NSA), which in 2013 suffered the biggest leak in its history when Edward Snowden, a former CIA contractor, walked out with a vast trove of secret documents.

Snowden disclosed to the press details of extensive internet and phone surveillance by American intelligence. As the scandal widened, multiple media outlets revealed that NSA tapped directly into the servers of internet firms to track online communication in a surveillance program known as Prism.

A decade later, it’s the Pentagon in the limelight this time. A set of highly classified documents from the department were leaked online in recent weeks, in an apparent security breach that revealed U.S. intelligence gathering on some of its key allies. South Korea, one of those affected, has played down any possibility of tension, reiterating its “strong” ties with America.

Those documents also reportedly include military assessments on the Ukraine crisis and CIA reports on a range of global issues. The embarrassing leak has endangered intelligence methods, exposed American strategy and undermined trust among U.S. allies, CNBC quoted former defense department officials and intelligence experts as saying.

SURVEILLANCE OBSESSION

For years, Washington has been spying on the world through electronic eavesdropping and communication interception, with the targets ranging from what it called “strategic competitors” to its European partners.

Anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks in 2015 released a trove of documents titled “Target Tokyo” detailing systematic mass surveillance the agency undertook of Japanese…

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China launches empire building exercise in Pacific theatre

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President Panuelo: ‘Chinese control over our security space, aside from impacts on our sovereignty, increases the chances of China getting into conflict with Australia, Japan, US and New Zealand, on the day when Beijing decides to invade Taiwan.’

Time to head to the map room. We’ll open the long, wide, top drawer, pull out the map of World War II’s Pacific Theatre, and set it aside on the chart table for now. We’ll get back to it. But first we’ll pull out an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) map of the region.

Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, every island can get up to 200 nautical miles off its coast as an EEZ in which it controls resources, say, fisheries. That means, for example, Pacific Island Country (PIC) Kiribati may have a population of around 120,000, but, with its EEZ, it covers as much of the planet as India.

Now let’s colour in the EEZs of the countries being visited at the moment by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his large delegation. What we see is a large, contiguous band—Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa—off the northeast coast of Australia, backed against Kiribati. And off to the northwest of Australia, almost embedded into Indonesia, strategically located Timor-Leste.

What are we looking at? Well, China helpfully tells us.

CHINA’S ‘VISION’ AND ‘FIVE-YEAR ACTION PLAN’ FOR PACIFIC ISLAND COUNTRIES

Wang is hoping the PICs who recognize China will sign on to two prewritten documents. We know what’s in them because they have been leaked by Pacific Islanders worried about the implications.

The first one is “China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision”. The second is “China-Pacific Island Countries Five-Year Action Plan on Common Development (2022-2026)”. The “Action Plan” describes how China plans to achieve its “Vision”.

“Vision” talks about: law enforcement cooperation, including “immediate and high-level police training”; “cooperation on network governance and cyber security”, including a “shared future in cyberspace”; the “possibility of establishing China-Pacific Island Countries Free Trade Area”;…

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