China-based network infiltrates computers in 103 countries: Report

Computers Infected by Chinese Malware.

 A electronic spying operation based primarily in China has infiltrated government and private computers in 103 countries around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, according to a report released Sunday.

The report, compiled by specialists based at the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto, said the spying was being done from computers based almost exclusively in China. The report was made public March 28, 2009.

“Up to 30 percent of the infected hosts are considered high-value targets and include computers located at ministries of foreign affairs, embassies, international organizations, news media and NGOs (non-governmental organizations),” the report said.

However, the researchers said they could not argue conclusively that the Chinese government was involved. It is difficult to imagine how such an effort could orginate from China without at least some government cooperation if not support.

Nevertheless the Canadian researchers insisted that” attributing all these operations to intelligence gathering by the Chinese state “is wrong and misleading.”

“Numbers can tell a different story,” the report said. “China is presently the world’s largest Internet population. The sheer number of young digital natives online can more than account for the increase in Chinese malware.” That conclusion seems more politics than science.

The investigation started when the office of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, asked them to examine its computers for signs of malicious software.

Their work led them to a broader operation that had infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in less than two years.

Some of these computers belonged to the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan exile centers in India, Brussels, London and New York.

“This report serves as a wake up call,” the authors pointed out. “At the very least a large percentage of high-value targets compromised by this network demonstrate the relative ease with which a technically unsophisticated approach can quickly be harnessed to to create a very effective spynet.”

The researchers said they believed that in addition to the spying on the Dalai Lama, the system, which they called GhostNet, was focused on the governments of South Asian and Southeast Asian countries.

The newly reported spying operation is by far the largest to come to light in terms of countries affected.

The operation continues to invade and monitor more than a dozen new computers a week, according to the report.

However, the researchers found no evidence that US government offices had been infiltrated, although a NATO computer was monitored by the spies for half a day and computers of the Indian Embassy in Washington were infiltrated.

This report is just the latest that points to a well organized Chinese intelligence gathering network if not overt spying.