Tag: espionage | Page 4

Developing countries sign Huawei deals despite US espionage warnings

May 16, 2021/in Computer Security

US warnings of espionage by Huawei are failing to dissuade governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America from hiring the Chinese tech group for cloud infrastructure and e-government services, a study has found.

The report by the Washington-based think-tank CSIS seen by the Financial Times identified 70 deals in 41 countries between Huawei and governments or state-owned enterprises for these services from 2006 to April this year.

Cloud infrastructure usually refers to the installation of data centres, while e-government mainly involves automating administrative functions such as licensing, healthcare, legal records and other government processes.

“Huawei’s cloud infrastructure and e-government services are handling sensitive data on citizens’ health, taxes, and legal records,” according to the study.

“As Huawei carves out a niche as a provider to governments and state-owned enterprises, it is building a strategic position that could provide Chinese authorities with valuable intelligence and even coercive leverage,” added the study.

Most of the countries involved in such deals with Huawei were in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America, and 77 per cent of them fell into the categories of “not free” or “partly free”, as rated by Freedom House, a US government-funded democracy watchdog group.

“With a surge in deals announced since 2018, including several announcements during 2020, it is clear that warnings against Huawei’s security risks are not persuading decision makers in developing countries,” the CSIS report, authored by Jonathan Hillman and Maesea McCalpin, said.

“As a cloud infrastructure and service provider, Huawei doesn’t own or control any customer data,” Huawei said in a statement.

“All customer data is owned and fully controlled by our customers.”

“Cyber security and user privacy protection remain Huawei’s top priorities,” the company added.

The US has repeatedly accused Huawei of spying for the Chinese government, sometimes by exploiting telecoms “back doors” in its equipment. Washington has also placed Huawei and many of its affiliates on an “entity list”, restricting the sale of critical technologies such…

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Top counterintelligence official highlights foreign espionage threats

May 12, 2021/in Computer Security

In this episode of Intelligence Matters, host Michael Morell speaks with Mike Orlando, the acting director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, about the range of foreign espionage threats facing the U.S. from adversaries and challengers like Russia and China. Orlando and Morell discuss how “non-traditional collectors” within the academic and business sectors are increasingly tasked by foreign governments to steal intellectual property and other secrets. Orlando, a career FBI agent who has specialized in counterintelligence, explains how NCSC has sought to warn U.S. private sector entities against espionage threats that have evolved in range and sophistication.

Highlights

Adversaries targeting private sector: “So, if you look back 20 years ago, what we were most concerned about was intelligence services targeting the U.S. government for classified information or targeting DOD technologies. And what we’ve seen over the last 20 years is the shift to private sector intellectual property research and development, particularly by China, who has been the most egregious one in stealing those technologies. And we’ve also seen their capabilities of China and Russia move from not only the human operations, but to cyber operations and to technical collection that has made it a difficult target to work.”
Espionage threat from the Chinese government: “We believe that there’s no other country than China that poses the most severe intelligence threat to America. We’re looking at $200 billion to $600 billion dollars a year in losses to intellectual property theft by China. And that’s been going on for the last 20 years. That’s a pretty staggering number of loss to us. And when you look at China’s national plans, as I said earlier, it’s one where it’s to put us essentially out of business. And I think the concerns for this generation ahead is that if we don’t stay ahead of this, we will be disadvantaged both economically and in the national security arena as well.”
“Non-traditional collectors”: “[W]e’ve seen a pivot to these non-traditional collectors, which are students, researchers, businesspeople, people who have legitimate…

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Cyber Daily: U.S. Agencies Hacked in Foreign Cyber Espionage Campaign

December 14, 2020/in Computer Security

Dec. 14, 2020 9:00 am ET
|

WSJ Pro

Good day. Multiple federal government agencies, including the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments, have had some of their computer systems breached as part of a widespread cyber espionage campaign linked to a foreign government, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing officials and people familiar with the matter.

Also today: Subway sandwich chain hacked; former
Cisco

employee sentenced to two years in prison after sabotaging servers; Paris protests of security proposal results in arrests; and
Facebook

shuts down malware accounts traced to Vietnam and Bangladesh.

U.S. Government Targeted

U.S. agencies hacked in foreign cyber espionage campaign. Multiple federal government agencies, including the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments, have had some of their computer systems breached as part of a widespread cyber espionage campaign linked to a foreign government, according to officials and people familiar with the matter.

Russia’s foreign intelligence service is suspected of being behind the hacks of the U.S. government networks—in which some internal communications are believed to have been stolen—and the operation is believed to be related to a cyber breach disclosed last week of U.S.-based cybersecurity firm
FireEye
,
one of the people familiar with the matter said.

The Commerce Department in a statement confirmed that one of its bureaus had been breached and that it was working with federal partners, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to probe the matter, but declined to comment further. The hack of Commerce systems includes the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a unit that works on technology policy issues, the person familiar with the matter said.

The Treasury Department and FBI didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did a spokesman for FireEye.

A spokesman for Russia’s embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The country has previously…

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