Posted by
Darko Trifunovic on Saturday, April 26, 2008 5:22:02 AM
Chinese Hacktivists Prepare To Defend
The Motherland
Excerpt(s): “Fuelled
by anti-Western nationalism, China ’s
new red army is a band of patriotic hackers [who] have come to the defence of
the motherland in response criticism of Beijing ’s
handling of recent pro-independence riots by ethnic Tibetans. The hackers are
believed to be behind recent attacks on several
US websites and a Chinese website
run by the French supermarket chain Carrefour. Scott Henderson, a former US
Army intelligence analyst who wrote a book about Chinese hackers called The Dark Visitor, has been tracking
developments on his blog and says that what’s happened over the past week
may be the opening salvo in new cyber war. The hackers, he says, are working
independently from the government but with its tacit support. ‘Once they [the
hackers] get started, it’s very hard to put the genie back in the
bottle,’ he said in a telephone interview. ‘It does seem to be
escalating and it’s feeding on itself.’”
Context/Analysis:American news network CNN was struck by a
denial-of-service cyber attack last week, which many believe was orchestrated
by Chinese hackers angered over the network’s coverage of Olympic
protests and Chinese security operations in
Tibet . Additionally,
U.S. Department of Defense officials have
indicated that they think that China
was behind a cyber attack against Pentagon computer systems in June 2007.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/security/chinese-hacktivists-prepare-to-defend-themotherland/2008/04/23/1208743025691.htm