Friday, February 22, 2013

Blog 4: Once Again China Cyber Attacks Causes Uproar


Once again the Chinese hacking continues. It has been seen that Chinese can reach and manipulate American infrastructure; like for instance, shutting down potential oil and gas pipelines.

So far, most of the Chinese hacking has been in the department of espionage; for example, obtaining large amounts of corrupt data and government databases. When David E. Sanger, Chief Washington Correspondent, looked at the reports of the New York Times Incident several weeks ago, where the first cyber attacks were reported, he noted that the most interesting element was that some of the attacks occurred in companies that hold government infrastructures. For instance, one of the companies hacked by the Chinese was a company focused on oil and gas pipelines held out of North and South America. They as well design the blueprints and software that turn the valves off and on. Because of the scare of having the Chinese hacking this data, the company was notified that they had to tell their customers to stop using the software. Unfortunately, it was noted that mush of the software for the oil and gas pipelines were stolen.

Kevin Mandia, Chief Executive, was interviewed so that the public could understand his opinion of the Chinese hackers. He stated that the Chinese did have the potential to destroy information or change things, but they have not done this. Instead they have only violated the confidentiality of that data. Mandia repeats that if they were to change their minds they do have the tools to corrupt our systems.

What does this mean for us now?

It has been seen that Chinese can reach and manipulate American infrastructure; like for instance, shutting down potential oil and gas pipelines. However, the question posed is what are they doing with the American information? Sanger posed that the reason is simply to get ahead in their businesses not to destroy or change our system.

A cyber code of conduct has been rumored to take place, but more information of this code will be released in the future.

The Chinese still denies that they had anything to do with the attacks or using cyber weapons.



Melanie Maldonado
02/22/2013
4:58 pm

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