[AfrICANN-discuss] China, a Country which has turned into a Rogue State

[Anne-Rachel Inné]

China, a Country which has turned into a Rogue
State<http://www.bloggernews.net/123545>
http://www.bloggernews.net/123545

Posted on January 15th, 2010
by naavi <http://www.bloggernews.net/1author/naavi/> in All
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The recent incidents that have indicated that the Chinese Government is
behind attacks on the Indian Prime Minsiter’s Office, trying to steal
sensitive information is yet another indication that China poses a serious
risk to the Global order through its pursuance of the “Cyber Super Power”
doctrine.

It is now revealed that in the attack on Google, China appears to have
exploited a vulnerability in Internet Explorer which enabled a remote code
execution.

In this context, we need to recall that in 2003, China forced Microsoft to
part with its OS source code to the Chinese Government in order to run its
business in China. It now appears that Chinese Government could have
misused the trust placed on it by Microsoft by running an organized hacking
research on the basis of the knowledge it must have gained by having the
access to the Windows source code.

It is not clear if Adobe has also shared any part of its application source
code with the Chinese Government since exploitation of Adobe application is
also alleged in some of the attacks emanating from China.

We can now therefore expect that the global information community is in
grave danger due to the possible exploitation of windows and adobe products
by the Chinese Government.

Adobe’s PDF is almost the global document standard just as much as what
Windows OS is to the OS market. While the intention of sharing the source
code with the Chinese Government by the software giants was in fact
acceptable from the point of view of the security of Chinese soverign
interest, it is unfortunate that the Chinese Government could have betrayed
the trust imposed on them.

If it is proved that the Chinese Government used the privileged access it
gained to the source code to plan and execute exploits, Microsoft must be
regretting its decision for having handed over its OS to a master hacker.
Now China is even in a position to just push Microsoft out of the market by
pirating the entire Windows software itself.

It is also necessary to remember that Chinese suppliers of Credit Card
swiping machines to UK have been caught having doctored the microchips so
that copies of Credit card information are sent to Chinese hackers. We have
also seen Chinese intrusion into Indian IT companies through which they have
planted key loggers to steal information from World Bank.

If one takes a comprehensive look at these developments, and also observe
how China is flooding the global market with computer hardware manufactured
in China, one gets a feeling that Chinese Cyber Spies are already well
entrenched in the globe. We donot know if backdoors exist in laptops of
chinese origin either to disable the computers on a remote call or extract
information from the computer from time to time.

India is aware of the exploits of China in Tibet, Arunachal Pradesh, Ladak
and other areas in its borders where they show scant regard to the accepted
international norms of behaviour.

As security experts point out, China has a specific road map  to dominate
the Cyber World and is therefore working overtime to become a champion in
Cyber Wars. The developments appear to be similar to the ambitions that
Hitler pursued before the Second World War.

Even US may not be able to counter this development unless there is a global
alliance of democratic countries to fight the rogue state that China is
developing into.

We therefore need to develop a comprehensive Cyber Security Strategy to meet
the threat of Cyber Warfare from China. Since the threat is global, India
should take the lead in developing a Global Cyber Safety Alliance against
Chinese Cyber Aggression.

As a part of this strategy, India should move for isolation of China from
Cyber Space by working thorugh ICANN so that China is prevented from tapping
into any Internet data from outside its borders without surveillance from
the global alliance.

The alliance should also put appropriate checks on imports of hardware from
China and employment of Chinese nationals in IT firms so that all forms of
hardware, software and people oriented risks likely to emanate from China
are monitored and mitigated.

While I do admire the ingenuity of China to safeguard its interests for
which they have every right, what is objectionable is its aggressive
tendencies to encroach on the freedom of other countries.  I consider that
it is the right of other countries to defend themselves and when it is
suspected that China has been supporting “State sponsored Cyber Attacks” on
other nationals, the response has to be in the form of a counter strategy by
a global alliance. The time appears to be ripe for the formation of such an
alliance under the leadership of India.

The first step in this direction is for the Indian Govenment to register a
case of Cyber Terrorism for the attack on the PMO’s office, pursue its
investigation and demand support from Chinese Government.

I urge Mr Chidambaram, the Union Home Minister to take the lead and develop
a “Strategy to protect Indian Cyber Space from Chinese Aggression”.

I also urge CERT-In to assure the Indian Cyber Society with an appropriate
action plan to protect Indian Cyber Space from possible Chinese Intrusion.

Probably Mr Shashi Tharoor should be placed in special charge of this
assignment under a separate ministry of “Indian Cyber Space Security”.

Naavi
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