Information Warfare: China and the Cyber Pirates

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April 9,2008: Taiwan, trying to stem data losses to increasing Cyber War attacks from China, has forbidden government personnel from taking classified computer files home with them. All classified data must stay at the work place, and hard drives containing classified data must be reformatted, or completely destroyed, when those devices are no longer needed for government work.

Chinese hackers had been targeting Taiwanese government, and especially military, officials who take home a laptop, or memory stick, to continue working. China targets these home users with deceptive emails, or has deals with Chinese language Internet crooks to report getting inside computers containing classified information. Bounties are paid for this, not to mention continued immunity from prosecution within China. This is one reason more and more Internet based crime is traced back to China. If the criminal hackers help with Chinese spying, they are protected from foreign prosecution for hacking done overseas. A sweet deal all around, except for the victims.

 

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