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

[midian182]

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.

#CGTNOpinion #CGTNCartoon Empire of hacking https://t.co/y8eZeIcOpY pic.twitter.com/jKBZMFLYRR

– CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) May 6, 2023

"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 undermine socialist regimes, as well as the United States' development of the TOR protocol, which China has spoken out against on many occasions due to its use by those who disagree with the country's ruling Communist party.

"The US must take seriously and respond to the concerns from the international community, and stop using cyber weapons to carry out espionage and cyber attacks around the world," said foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning.

China and the US have a long history when it comes to hacking. In 2015, then-President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that they had come to an agreement that "neither country's government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property." But attacks on US companies by Chinese government-backed hackers were reported just a few weeks later.

One of the biggest hacks the US blamed on China in recent times was the one on Microsoft Exchange in 2021.

In February last year, Federal Bureau of Investigation director Christopher Wray said that China is responsible for more cyberattacks on the US than every other country combined.

It's not just CIA hacks China likes to complain about. The government has repeatedly called the CHIPS Act discriminatory and claimed it shows the US' Cold War mentality. The number of chip-related export restrictions is also a sore point, especially now the US has convinced Japan and The Netherlands to tighten their rules, too.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/98594-china-calls-us-empire-hacking-citing-2017-wikileaks.html

 

[yRaz]

China can barely brainwash its own citizens, how does it expect to brainwash the rest of the world?

 

[Achaios]

I am happy the CIA appear to be doing their job and I am happy that taxpayer money seems to be well spent in those endeavors.

IMHO the CIA, the NSA and all these alphabet agencies can never do enough when it comes to China.

China is enemy no1 and the main threat to the security and prosperity of the average American and European person.

You would not believe what the Chinese are actually technologically capable of when it comes to espionage.

Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) on Twitter regularly posts on (unclas) Chinese espionage endeavors vs the US Armed Forces in the Pacific Ocean Region and even West Coast of the Continental USA!

 

[StevenD]

This is hilarious for many reason.

Oh the chips act is discriminatory and cold war mentality. This coming from a country that has been extremely hawkish towards both US and EU. Imagine you're selling guns from the back of a car and someone extremely aggressive comes and asks you for some. Would you sell?

I expect every country to do it's measure of hacking. Welcome to the real world where at an intergovernmental level there are no rules so the more information you have the better. That being said a lot of the issues china is bitching about could be solved by them not selling so many crappy IOT devices with security protocols a toddler could break into.

And as a final anecdote, every time I see intrusion attempts on an exposed server I have the flag next to the IP is almost always red.

 

[yRaz]

This is hilarious for many reason.

Oh the chips act is discriminatory and cold war mentality. This coming from a country that has been extremely hawkish towards both US and EU. Imagine you're selling guns from the back of a car and someone extremely aggressive comes and asks you for some. Would you sell?

how is the chips act a "cold war mentality". China literally have live fire exercises around Taiwan constantly. They have released their invasion plans for Taiwan. Any state-owned company has to put back doors in it's hardware.

How is anyone defending China or putting the US at fault here? Sure, we like to destablize small countries, set up puppet governments and steal their resources, but we aren't trying to spy on the world and take it over.

 

[Kam7r]

Kids ... with nukes...

 

[noel24]

how is the chips act a "cold war mentality". China literally have live fire exercises around Taiwan constantly. They have released their invasion plans for Taiwan. Any state-owned company has to put back doors in it's hardware.

How is anyone defending China or putting the US at fault here? Sure, we like to destablize small countries, set up puppet governments and steal their resources, but we aren't trying to spy on the world and take it over.

Funny thing is, most of the chips that goes out of Taiwan, goes through mainland China as an intermediate product. They will loose more than They will gain on this scrap of land. But an old fart of a dictator, Winnie the Poo will have something to warm his heart before His death - making us pay more for electronics, as global corpos will strugle to workout places to assemble our TVs and PCs outside of China.

 

[yRaz]

Funny thing is, most of the chips that goes out of Taiwan, goes through mainland China as an intermediate product. They will loose more than They will gain on this scrap of land. But an old fart of a dictator, Winnie the Poo will have something to warm his heart before His death - making us pay more for electronics, as global corpos will strugle to workout places to assemble our TVs and PCs outside of China.

I think that's the wrong mindset to have and it's something that leads to e-waste. We don't care about the effects of cheap chinese labor because we don't see them. We made things like "company housing" and the "company store" illegal In most of the world, these practices are still legal in china. It's just slavery with extra steps. Maybe if these products were produced in the first world where reasonable wages and working hours were expected they would cost more. But, we'd probably also try to squeeze more value out of those products.

Thinking that "prices will rise if we take manufacturing out of China" is the wrong mindset to have. The things that made them that cheaper were human rights violations. Moving manufacturing out of China will mean that things will be priced as they should in a proper world. They aren't going to get more expensive, the thing is they never should have been that cheap in the first place.

 

[noel24]

I think that's the wrong mindset to have and it's something that leads to e-waste. We don't care about the effects of cheap chinese labor because we don't see them. We made things like "company housing" and the "company store" illegal In most of the world, these practices are still legal in china. It's just slavery with extra steps. Maybe if these products were produced in the first world where reasonable wages and working hours were expected they would cost more. But, we'd probably also try to squeeze more value out of those products.

Thinking that "prices will rise if we take manufacturing out of China" is the wrong mindset to have. The things that made them that cheaper were human rights violations. Moving manufacturing out of China will mean that things will be priced as they should in a proper world. They aren't going to get more expensive, the thing is they never should have been that cheap in the first place.

Yes and no. It was corporate decision long time ago to move to China. Economy of scale was started there, probably because of the Chinese government's will, and grants or tax exemptions, on top of cheap labour.
You can still find relatively cheap labour in Asia elsewhere, with better democracy record, just no 50 years of background in manufacturing.
But yeah, Asia is generally lower in treating people's rights, so I cannot deny, maybe there'se something there.

 

[yRaz]

Yes and no. It was corporate decision long time ago to move to China. Economy of scale was started there, probably because of the Chinese government's will, and grants or tax exemptions, on top of cheap labour.
You can still find relatively cheap labour in Asia elsewhere, with better democracy record, just no 50 years of background in manufacturing.
But yeah, Asia is generally lower in treating people's rights, so I cannot deny, maybe there'se something there.

We let those companies export those jobs to China. We knew there were human rights violations going on at the time and we ignored it. Now, after nearly 5 decades, our greed has turned China into a world super power that is arguably a bigger threat to world peace than Nazi Germany. We ignore their human organ harvesting farms, their "re-education camps" IE, concentration camps. People really just don't care. This stuff is talk about constantly but no one remembers it because it isn't convenient for getting their next graphics card or the new iPhone. Now they're setting up illegal police stations in other countries including the US.

Blame it on corporate greed, lobbyists or politicians all you want, we let this happen as a society and now that we know about it, we don't care.

 

[noel24]

We let those companies export those jobs to China. We knew there were human rights violations going on at the time and we ignored it. Now, after nearly 5 decades, our greed has turned China into a world super power that is arguably a bigger threat to world peace than Nazi Germany. We ignore their human organ harvesting farms, their "re-education camps" IE, concentration camps. People really just don't care. This stuff is talk about constantly but no one remembers it because it isn't convenient for getting their next graphics card or the new iPhone. Now they're setting up illegal police stations in other countries including the US.

Blame it on corporate greed, lobbyists or politicians all you want, we let this happen as a society and now that we know about it, we don't care.

Again, I kinda agree. Yes You're right, but No, I'm Polish, until 35 years ago We were under Soviet occupation, so I had nothing to do with It. I was literally 9 when Tiananmen massacre happened.
;-)
And then we had 90s and everybody said that those "communist" countries will liberalize and we will live happily ever after. Never happened.
In the end We don't care what happen over the closest border. Got our own everyday problems. The job lies with our chosen representatives, but They fail repeatedly.

 

[yRaz]

Again, I kinda agree. Yes You're right, but No, I'm Polish, until 35 years ago We were under Soviet occupation, so I had nothing to do with It. I was literally 9 when Tiananmen massacre happened.
;-)
And then we had 90s and everybody said that those "communist" countries will liberalize and we will live happily ever after. Never happened.
In the end We don't care what happen over the closest border. Got our own everyday problems. The job lies with our chosen representatives, but They fail repeatedly.

I'm Slovak, my family came to the US in the 1920s. I'll avoid the "being discriminated against because I'm white when my family wasn't even here for that" tangent. But, fine, you have a reasonable excuse for not even being part of that. However, continued ignorance is everyone's responsibility. So whether or not I refer to the US or Western society when I say "we" is irrelevant. It was inexcusable then and it is even more inexcusable now.

So if you want to shift the conversation from "it will increase the cost of goods" to "my country wasn't even responsible for that", fine. Fact of the matter is that you benefit from China's exploitation of labor on a daily basis, do you plan to do anything about it?

 

[Darth Shiv]

China can barely brainwash its own citizens, how does it expect to brainwash the rest of the world?

They speak the truth though. The history of US hacking other nation states is very very widely accessible. You don't have to take their word for it. They are extremely zealous in punishing those who reveal their crimes. One might say authoritarian.

I'm not saying the Chinese are innocent. They are of course bad as well. But that's the point right? The US is hypocritical for criticising hacking of other countries when they routinely sabotage other countries with such technology.

 

[noel24]

I'm Slovak, my family came to the US in the 1920s. I'll avoid the "being discriminated against because I'm white when my family wasn't even here for that" tangent. But, fine, you have a reasonable excuse for not even being part of that. However, continued ignorance is everyone's responsibility. So whether or not I refer to the US or Western society when I say "we" is irrelevant. It was inexcusable then and it is even more inexcusable now.

So if you want to shift the conversation from "it will increase the cost of goods" to "my country wasn't even responsible for that", fine. Fact of the matter is that you benefit from China's exploitation of labor on a daily basis, do you plan to do anything about it?

Again, You're right.
But as a consumers, what can We do, if They hold monopoly? All that talk about moving manufacturing of electronics out of PRC, and only complaints from corporations that chips made in USA will be too expensive or Indians can't keep the quality of phones they assemble.
I suppose politicians who spend My taxes left and right should be responsible for subsidizing production "here".
Me, on my part, I'm not completely callous to human rights record, I grew up behind iron curtain, and for example, I used to choose clothes and shoes made in Bangladesh or Phillipines, or whatever, but It's not even thing anymore, most good brands already resigned, so maybe We should start writing emails to our PC OEMs that We want equipement made outside of China?
But then, Bangladesh and the likes, also have problems with labour rights.
So, I can declare that I despise Xi, but as a consumer I don't feel I can do much at that time.

 

[MyIOnU]

There is no hackers in China because they are all CCP cyber warfare agents.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

The US engages in more cyberwarfare than any other country in the world. Period. Any thought to the contrary is naive. The CIA, NSA, FBI, DoD, etc. have "misplaced" more money than other countries entire budgets.

You can convince yourself that largest spying apparatus in the history of the world being focused both outward and inward (against "domestic threats") is "for the good of the people", but consider for a moment that that is what every government claims: the Soviet Union, China, Germany in the 1940s, etc.

The difference here is what? Getting to pick between two pre-selected politicians every few years. My mistake, that will totally keep us safe.

 

[kinetix]

China can barely brainwash its own citizens, how does it expect to brainwash the rest of the world?

I'm sorry, but the biggest mind-washer (or has tried to be), for far too long, has been and is the US (and UK as an addendum). His best result has been convincing his own citizens and his minions that they don't... but guess what? They've barely been able to for a long time now, most of the planet learned quite well to see through all their BS, especially in the last 20 years.

 

[kinetix]

how is the chips act a "cold war mentality". China literally have live fire exercises around Taiwan constantly. They have released their invasion plans for Taiwan. Any state-owned company has to put back doors in it's hardware.

How is anyone defending China or putting the US at fault here? Sure, we like to destablize small countries, set up puppet governments and steal their resources, but we aren't trying to spy on the world and take it over.

as far as I know only a dozen or so countries (mostly small or even islands) consider taiwan an "independent country", the rest consider it part of china, including usa with its "one china" policy. Consequently, for these countries, what China does there should be considered their internal matter and to be resolved between those two parties. do you see the hypocrisy?
An example of this hypocrisy will be when the US manages to get as much chip manufacturing capacity out of there as they can, and then its only interest in the island will be as a sacrifice and cannon fodder to try to weaken China (as with Ukraine towards Russia). , in order to maintain power and hegemony. But some politicians in Taiwan seem to have read between the lines of the Chips law, as well as context and world developments. How events unfold... will be to see.

Then, it seems that we forgot Snowden's revelations, and incidentally how even "allied" leaders were spied on (of Merkel they surely knew even the color of her piss), or on commercial affairs to later give advantage to US companies .

 

[yRaz]

as far as I know only a dozen or so countries (mostly small or even islands) consider taiwan an "independent country", the rest consider it part of china, including the usa with its "one china" policy. Consequently, for these countries, what China does there should be considered an internal matter and to be resolved between those two parties. do you see the hypocrisy?
An example of this hypocrisy will be when the US manages to get as much chip manufacturing capacity out of there as it can, and then its only interest in the island will be as a sacrifice and cannon fodder to try to weaken China (as with Ukraine towards Russia). , in order to maintain power and hegemony. But some politicians in Taiwan seem to have read between the lines of the Chips law, as well as context and world developments. How events unfold... will be to see.

Then, it seems that we forgot Snowden's revelations, and incidentally how even "allied" leaders were spied on (of Merkel they surely knew even the color of her piss), or on commercial affairs to later give advantage to US companies .

Are you a native English speaker?

 

[kinetix]

Are you a native English speaker?

no, I´m not, so what? does it bothers you?

 

[yRaz]

no, I´m not, so what....?

Just curious, I had a difficult time reading your comments but that's understandable if you're a non-native speaker. What is your native language?

 

[kinetix]

Just curious, I had a difficult time reading your comments but that's understandable if you're a non-native speaker. What is your native language?

why? Does it bother you that it isn't?
since I am a charitable soul, I will tell you that it is the language of Cervantes.

 

[yRaz]

why? Does it bother you that it isn't?

Not at all. I've just been a big part of the TechSpot community for years and like to know everyone on the board. Before I try to discredit someone based on their grammar I like to know a little bit about them. Maybe English isn't their first langauge and there's nothing wrong with that.

It certainly makes having a debate more difficult, but not impossible. You made some good points, points I disagree with, but I'm just trying to understand you.

 

[Dimitrios]

Am I the only one here that wasn't shocked when the news reported 6 states formed Chinese run police stations in America? The news showed the pics and locations about a week or so ago.

 

[Tantor]

Am I the only one here that wasn't shocked when the news reported 6 states formed Chinese run police stations in America? The news showed the pics and locations about a week or so ago.

Meanwhile there are literally thousands of Mexican run police stations in America. Including quite a few within the US itself.

Does that mean that Mexicans are taking over America?

LOL.