US plans more talks with China on Google row: diplomat

CYBER WARS

Microsoft patching IE hole used by China cyber spies
San Francisco (AFP) Jan 19, 2010 - Microsoft said Tuesday it is working around the clock to patch an Internet Explorer 6 (IE 6) software hole through which China-based cyber spies attacked Google and other firms. Microsoft is testing a security fix and will make it available as soon as it is ready instead of following its protocol of releasing security updates the second Tuesday of each month. "We are working 24-by-7, around the clock," Microsoft general manager of Trustworthy Computing Security George Stathakopoulos told AFP. "We have been monitoring the threat landscape since the start of this issue." Microsoft is to announce Wednesday when the security patch will be released. Attacks that prompted a showdown between Internet giant Google and global power China only worked against IE 6, so computer users can protect themselves by switching to newer versions of the Web browser, according to Stathakopoulos.

"IE 7 and 8 seem to be holding," Stathakopoulos said. "None of the attacks we know of will be effective against IE 8. That could change, but that is what we know." No matter which Web browser people use, upgrading to the most current version promises to increase protection against hackers. Microsoft confirmed last week that a previously unknown security vulnerability in its IE 6 browser was used in cyberattacks which prompted Google to threaten to shut down its operations in China. Web security firm McAfee Inc. said that the attacks on Google and other companies showed a level of sophistication beyond that of cyber criminals and more typical of a nation-state.

Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research for McAfee, said that while McAfee had "no proof that the Chinese are behind this particular attack, I think there are indications though that a nation-state is behind it." Google said more than 20 other unidentified firms were targeted in the "highly sophisticated" attacks while other reports have put the number of companies attacked at more than 30. Stathakopoulos described the attacks as "limited and targeted." Only one other company, Adobe, has come forward so far and acknowledged that it was a target.

Google suspects hacking by China staff: report
Beijing (AFP) Jan 19, 2010 - Google is checking whether any of its China staff helped hackers lead a major cyberattack against the US Internet giant, which is now mulling whether to leave the country, a report said Tuesday. The Wall Street Journal, citing unidentified sources, said the internal network access of some of Google's 700-odd employees in China had been cut off for the duration of the internal investigation. It was not immediately clear if Google had found evidence to link any of its China-based staff to either the theft of its intellectual property or alleged attempts to access Gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents. Google said Monday it was "business as usual" in China and its employees were at work, after local media reports that some staff had seen their access to Google's global network cut off and could no longer work. The company last week announced it was considering abandoning its Chinese search engine, and could shut its China offices, over theft of its intellectual property by hackers, believed to have been based in China. Google says it is no longer willing to bow to Chinese Internet censors by filtering search results on google.cn, but is still seeking talks with Beijing on a solution. The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China said Monday that expatriate journalists in a "few" bureaus in Beijing had discovered that their Gmail accounts had been hacked, with messages forwarded to a stranger's account.

by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Jan 19, 2010
The US and Chinese governments have had "multiple meetings" about a row between Google and China over Internet freedom, and plan to have more in the next few days, a senior US diplomat said Tuesday.

Kurt Campbell, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's top diplomat for east Asia, gave few details about the talks except to say they had taken place.

"On the Google-China issue, I think it would be fair to say that the US government has had multiple meetings with Chinese authorities on this matter and will have more in the coming days," Campbell told reporters.

"It is also the case that we take this matter very seriously," he said.

"Now, it is also clear that China has denied the allegations made by Google. But we also think that the Chinese are in the best position to explain this, and we are asking them for an explanation."

Campbell would not say whether Washington had made a formal request to Beijing for an explanation, as the State Department promised would be the case last week.

But a senior State Department official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity replied "not yet" when asked to confirm whether Washington had delivered the "demarche."

When asked why it was taking so long, the official replied: "We are managing a relationship and we are... discussing this with the Chinese.

"We want to see a transparent investigation of this. To some extent we are still trying to figure out what exactly happened," the official said, adding that he did not know if Clinton herself had raised the issue with the Chinese.

In a statement last week, Clinton informally asked for an explanation from China for what Google said was a wave of "highly sophisticated" cyberattacks aimed at Chinese human rights activists.

The White House last Thursday backed Google's decision to no longer submit to China's Internet censorship in a row the search giant warned could lead it to pull out of the country.

The row has threatened to rattle ties between Washington and Beijing -- already frayed over a number of issues, from the Copenhagen climate change debacle to the value of the Chinese yuan and a number of other trade disputes.

Clinton will meanwhile deliver remarks on Internet freedom on Thursday, laying out President Barack Obama administration's "strategy for protecting freedom in the networked age of the 21st century," the State Department said.

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CYBER WARS

Beijing denies China hackers attacked Indian govt
Beijing (AFP) Jan 19, 2010
China on Tuesday rejected reports that Indian government computers had been attacked by Chinese hackers as "groundless", one week after US Internet giant Google made a similar accusation. A source in the office of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh confirmed an attempted hacking to AFP last Friday, but said nothing had been compromised. The origin of the cyber attack was unknown at thi ... read more

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