Crossroads Blog | Institute National Security and Counterterrorism

Cyber Exploitation

Taiwan says Chinese cyber-army swells to 100K, Comment Crew back in business (infosecurity/The Register)

I figured I’d save time and condense all the China stories into one post.

Via infosecurity, “Taiwan’s National Security Bureau (NSB) said that the Chinese government continues to target its assets, and has extended its cyber-army to more than 100,000 people, with a budget in excess of $2.71 million per year to carry out hacking activities.”  The article went on to say that the Chinese are increasingly targeting “civilian think tanks, telecom operators, internet node facilities and traffic signal control systems” over the usual foreign government fare.

The Chinese denied the accusations, likely reading off the same paper they’ve used for all the other accusations.  Guess that’s the end of it, then.

And to think, CyberComm is only looking to add a few thousand, putting them around 4,900.

I don’t know if that $2.71 million is a mistake or is correct . . . it seems awfully small.

Anyways, here’s the original Taipei Times article, where Rich Chang discusses Taiwan’s efforts to counter Chinese hackers.  Chang also said that between “6,000 and 10,000 students could join China’s cyberwarfare army in coming years.”

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I think I may have retweeted a similar story the other day, but just in case you missed it, John Leyden reported for The Register on how Comment Crew aka APT1 is back in business.  Leyden explained:

All signs suggest that “Comment Crew” and other Chinese APT threat groups are still conducting exploitation operations. In fact, there has been little change detected within “Comment Crew” operations. They have not significantly retooled their traditional implant technologies or command and control capabilities, nor modified their target selection process. All this is contrary to earlier expectations that public exposure might result in dissolution or at least a significant long-term decrease of “Comment Crew” activity.

Man these guys are cocky, and really don’t care if we catch them red-handed.  We better slap together a few more US-China cybersecurity working groups.

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