...COUNTERINTELLIGENCE O F F I C E O F T H E N A T I O N A L C O U N T E R I N T E L L I G E N C E E X E C U T I V E October 2011 Ta b l e o f C o n t e n t s Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................ i Scope Note ........................................................................................................................................... iii US Technologies and Trade Secrets at Risk in Cyberspace.....................................................................1 The Appeal of Collecting in Cyberspace................................................................................. .....1 Security and attribution ....................................................................................................... 1 Faster and cheaper .............................................................................................................. 2 Extra-territoriality ................................................................................................................ 2 Large but Uncertain Costs........................................................................................................... 3 Pervasive Threat from Intelligence Adversaries and Partners ...............................................................4 China: Persistent Collector..............................................................................................
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...Running head: CYBER-ESPIONAGE AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THEFT 1 Cyber-espionage and Intellectual Property (IP) theft: An overview of the rising threat and the potential responses by both the U. S. Government and U.S. Businesses Matthew Doyal Kennesaw State University Spring 2014 IS 8200 – Legal & Ethical Issues in IS CYBER-ESPIONAGE AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THEFT Abstract 2 Society and business have become increasingly dependent upon data in the constantly connected world where everything that is said and done online leaves behind a massive ever-growing bread-crumb trail of information. With this ever larger quantity of data being transmitted on a range of devices as well as third party service providers being increasingly relied upon to store it; the threat of loss of confidential and sensitive data continues to expand exponentially (Online Trust Alliance, 2014, p. 3). “Breaches and data loss incidents have become a fact of life for organizations of every size and throughout the public and private sectors” (Online Trust Alliance, 2014, p. 4) making no organization immune. Given the growth of data and, therefore, data breaches the threat to the U.S. economy and individual U.S. businesses from trade secret theft is real and growing, therefore; a multi-pronged approach must be implemented by the public and private sectors alike. “Businesses must do their part to harden their cyber defenses, but the “take-home message here is that protecting IP from ‘them’ is an...
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...Weak USA Cyber Policy vs China’s Security Threat to the USA? Abstract A cyber spy network based mainly in China hacked into classified documents from government and private organizations. One of the biggest questions still remains unanswered. Should the U.S. Congress conduct an in depth assessment of Chinese cyber spying and consider imposing tougher penalties on companies that benefit from industrial espionage. In this paper I will review china’s cyber threat and possible USA solutions to protect against the threat. Could Weak USA Cyber Policy be the cause of China’s Security Threat? U.S. corporations and cyber security specialists have reported an daily attack of computer network intrusions originating from China. Of the seven cases that were adjudicated under the Economic Espionage Act in 2010, six involved a link to China. U.S. corporations and cyber security specialists have reported a huge increase of computer network intrusions originating from China. Some of these reports have alleged a Chinese corporate or government sponsor of the activity, but the U.S. intelligence community has not been able to confirm these reports. In a study released in February, McAfee attributed an intrusion attempt they labeled Night Dragon to a Chinese Internet Protocol (IP) address and indicated the intruders stole data from the computer systems of petrochemical companies (Minnick, W. 11 Dec, 2011).” So could the problem be U.S. Cyber policy? I believe congressional committees...
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...Cyber Espionage Topics in Global Strategy Mike Dresser MGT 536 March 11, 2013 Cyber espionage is quickly becoming one of the most feared tactics around the world, but most recently, the computer spy game between China and the United States has been elevated to new levels. Just within the last few days, The New York Times broke a story pin pointing Coca Cola as one of the main targets of a Chinese sponsored cyber attack. Many believe this was largely due to discussions that Coca Cola had with China Huiyuan Juice Company regarding a potential acquisition. If it had gone through, this would have been the largest acquisition of a Chinese company by a foreign corporation. However, due to an elaborate Chinese cyber spy operation, they attempted to hack into Coke’s files to find information about Coca Cola’s negotiating strategy, and the deal was ultimately terminated because of deceptive practices. This is only the tip of the iceberg as cyber spy attacks are becoming more and more prevalent across the globe with no signs of slowing down. Mandiant, a cyber security company, also made front page news this past week when they published a full detailed report that traced a series of cyber attacks on a variety of U.S. companies, as well as many of our government agencies, such as the Department of Defense, NASA, and the Department of Commerce. Mandiant specifically identified a Shanghai based operation known...
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...Cyber warfare One of the first cyber-attacks was the Morris worm in the year 1988. It had affected the world cyber infrastructure. This worm utilized the weak areas of UNIX system Noun1. This worm has replicated adversely and slowed down the computers in all of the US and made them unusable. Cyber warfare has become a societal issue now. Though the roots of cyber warfare aimed at military areas primarily, it extended its effects to non-military areas too. The information infrastructure based companies have become victimized due to abundant availability of cheap cyber weapons over internet. This resulted in economic instability. Libicki classified information warfare into seven categories. They are intelligence based warfare, economic information warfare, hacker warfare, psychological warfare, electronic warfare, command and control warfare and cyber warfare. CSI and CERT information reflects that securities incidents are common, private firms are the major targets and much of these security incidents never receive public acknowledgement (Geeks et al., 2010). Several tools in the cyber warfare are developed based on Windows and are available free of cost. They require a minimal understanding about the technology frames. Many of the network organizations today are using well developed proxy servers, intrusion detection systems and firewalls. However these defensive systems are often configured improperly and carried known vulnerabilities. This weakness gave an opportunity even...
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...How the U.S. Government Hacks the World "We know foreign countries and companies swipe our corporate secrets. Now our enemies are also seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions and our air traffic control systems," President Obama, in his State of the Union Address in February. (MacLeod, 2013) At the same time, President Obama signed an executive order to protect our country’s infrastructure from cyberattacks, a very real and dangerous problem. Our own government admits to cyber espionage and while former CIA and NSA agents confirm this, we, as citizens, must wonder how far our government takes this liberty while pointing their fingers at other countries, namely China. While the article gives specific information to secretive government branches and even a secretive unit known as Tailored Access Operations, it cites a Pentagon official as well as two former U.S. government officials, all who asked not to be named. Informing the readers of possible secretive organizations within our own country and how they conduct business was achieved quite well. The facts in the article can be argued, however, considering their sources are unnamed and none of the information in the report can be unequivocally confirmed from the government. The article does consider alternative views, namely the U.S. government. The argument is stated early in the article, “The U.S. position is that some kinds of hacking are more acceptable than others –and the kind...
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...Business Master of Management Universitas Gadjah Mada 2014 Google and Operation Aurora I. Introduction In a competitive business world, there are two practices to win the competition which so-called competitive intelligence and industrial espionage. In competitive intelligence, a business entity legally gathers information by examining corporate publications, websites, patent filings and the like, to determine its activities. For the same reason, in industrial espionage, it steals trade secrets by removing, copying, or recording of confidential or valuable information in a competing company. Industrial espionage describes hidden activities, such as the theft of trade secrets, bribery, blackmail and technological surveillance. Industrial espionage is most commonly associated with technology-heavy industries, particularly the computer and auto sectors, in which a significant amount of money is spent on research and development (R&D). One of the most notable industrial espionage is “Operation Aurora” which took place in 2009 when some parties hacked Google China operation, stealing intellectual property and, in particular, accessing the email accounts of human rights activists. II. Brief Explanation Operation Aurora was a cyber attack conducted by advanced persistent threats, such as Elderwood Group that based in Beijing China. Elderwood Group was the digital arms dealer that was used against Google, operating since 2009, when Titan was hit. The Elderwood supplier has...
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...Attacks11/23/14 China’s Cyber Attack on Google A majority of the population in the United States has used Google as a search engine to find information. It is often easy to think that whatever information you want to find on the internet can be found through Google. However, in China, that wasn’t always the case. In 2006, Google extended its company to China in hopes to help digitally connect China’s population to more resources over the internet. Unfortunately, opening up Google in China led the company to experience cybersecurity breaches that affected many companies and people. The following paper will discuss one of China related cybersecurity attacks on Google and how the breach might have occurred based on investigative reports. Additionally, the paper will include information on known or suspected losses of confidentiality, integrity, and the availability of information systems. Lastly, I will discuss the improvements Google made to improve its cybersecurity measures. The history of Google in China begins in 2006, when the company decided to launch its services to China. Although the intention for Google in China was to provide the Chinese with more resources for information, China still had several regulations on censorship. Whether the censorship regulations fueled the hackers to attack Google is unknown, but it is suspected (Arrington, 2010). Recent reports on cybersecurity breaches related to China show that China has been consistently responsible for...
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...It is evident through the treat patterns that Mobley recognizes through his intelligence and counterintelligence analysis. His techniques are also useful to corporate brands that value their data. Hence, his analysis gives corporate brand the foresight to deter corporate espionage by controlling their information structure. This is achieved through their analysis of social media platforms, public records, trend, patterns and consumer behavior identify the threats that these brand face in their niches. Hence, strategic communication should be a tool that all organizations value if they want to anticipate all threats that they might face. Therefore, the intelligence and counterintelligence techniques are useful in preventing corporate...
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...How Ethics Relate To Computer Crimes Herman T. Everidge III Legal and Ethical Issues in Computing CIS 4253, 847 James R. Moore, Jr. September 29, 2012 Computer Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses and Malware Malware refers to software programs designed to damage or do other unwanted actions on computer systems; viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and spyware are the most common types of malware. Computer viruses show us how vulnerable we are; viruses can have a devastating effect on businesses, they disrupt productivity and can cause billions of dollars in damages. They also show us how sophisticated and interconnected we have become. Computer viruses are called viruses because they share some of the traits of biological viruses; computer viruses pass from computer to computer much like a biological virus passes from person to person. Computer viruses are created by people by writing code to create the virus, and designing the attack phase which could be a message or initiate the destruction of a piece of hardware. Early viruses were pieces of code embedded in legitimate programs, like games or word processors. A virus is a small piece of software that piggybacks on real programs; it might attach itself to a program and each time the program runs the virus runs too, and they can reproduce by attaching to other programs. E-mail viruses travel as an attachments to e-mail messages and can replicate themselves by automatically mailing itself to people in the victim's e-mail address...
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...internet is cyber crime. which is an illegal activity that committed on the internet and this includes email espionage, credit card fraud, spam’s, software piracy download illegal music, steal money from online bank account and so on .It also includes non monetary offenses such as creating and distributing viruses on other computers and posting confidential business information on the internet. Basically cyber crime can be divided into three major categories such as cyber crime against person, cyber crime against property and cyber crime against government. Cyber crime against person includes various crimes like transmission of child pornography, indecent exposure, harassment of any one with the use of email or websites where the asked to enter password, phone number, address, credit card number, bank account number and other information that are needed to steal another parson's identity .furthermore, these type of harassment can be sexual, racial, religious, on gender, nationality or other. These often occur in chat rooms, through news groups and by sending hate emails to interested parties. And badly affect to the younger generation which sometimes leave irreparable injury if not properly controlled. The second category of cyber crime committed against all forms of property including computer vandalism which distraction of others property, transmission of harmful program, stole the technical data base from other person's computer with the help of a corporate cyber spy. ...
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...be it entertainment, business, sports , health or education. However, one of the major disadvantages of internet is cyber crime.which is an illegal activity that committed on the internet and this includes email espionage, credit cad fraud ,spams, software piracy download illegal music, steal money from online bank account and so on .It also includes non monetary offenses such as creating and distributing viruses on other computers and posting confidential business information on the internet. Basically cyber crime can be divided into three major categories such as cyber crime against person, cyber crime against property and cyber crime against government. Cyber crime against person includes various crimes like transmission of child pornography, indecent exposure, harassment of any one with the use of email or websites where the asked to enter password , phone number ,address , credit card number , bank account number and other information that are needed to steal another parson's identity .furthermore, these type of harassment can be sexual, racial, religious ,on gender , nationality or other and often occurs in chat rooms , through news groups and by sending hate emails to interested parties. And these types of crimes badly affect to the younger generation which sometimes leave irreparable injury if not properly controlled . The second category of cyber crime committed against all forms of property including computer vandalism which distraction of others property , transmission...
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...Trojan Dragon: China’s Cyber Threat John J. Tkacik, Jr. America’s counterintelligence czar, Dr. Joel F. Brenner, painted an alarming picture of economic espionage in 2006, albeit in the objective tones and neutral parlance of the intelligence community. He reported to Congress that “foreign collection efforts have hurt the United States in several ways”: • Foreign technology collection efforts have “eroded the US military advantage by enabling foreign militaries to acquire sophisticated capabilities that might otherwise have taken years to develop.” • “[M]assive” industrial espionage has “undercut the US economy by making it possible for foreign firms to gain a competitive economic edge over US companies.” Dr. Brenner characterizes China as “very aggressive” in acquiring U.S. advanced technology. “The technology bleed to China, among others, is a very serious problem,” he said in March 2007, noting that “you can now, from the comfort of your own home or office, exfiltrate information electronically from somebody else’s computer around the world without the expense and risk of trying to grow a spy.” On November 15, 2007, the bipartisan, congressionally chartered U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) put a finer point on it: “Chinese espionage activities in the United States are so extensive that they comprise the single greatest risk to the security of American technolo- gies.” Cyberpenetration is by far China’s most effective espionage tool, and it is one...
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...CYBER CRIME Crimes refer to any violation of law or the commission of an act forbidden by law. Definition: cybercrime can be defined as crimes committed on the internet using the computer as either a tool or a targeted victim According to Wikipidia.com cybercrime also known as computer crime that refers to any crime that involves a computer and a network Cybercrime includes any criminal act dealing with computers and networks (called hacking). Additionally, cybercrime also includes traditional crimes conducted through the Internet. For example; hate crimes, telemarketing and Internet fraud, identity theft, and credit card account thefts are considered to be cybercrimes when the illegal activities are committed through the use of a computer and the Internet. Definition: cybercrime can be defined as crimes committed on the internet using the computer as either a tool or a targeted victim Computer can be considers as a tool in cybercrime when the individual is the main target of cybercrime. But computer can be considers as target when the crime is directed to the computer. In addition, cybercrime also includes traditional crimes that been conducted with the access of Internet. For example hate crimes, telemarketing Internet fraud, identity theft, and credit card account thefts. In simple word, cybercrime can be defined as any violence action that been conducted by using computer or other devices with the access of internet. This action can give harmful effects to an...
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...law enforcement agencies such as the Secret Service, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and others that have taken on roles to fight computer crimes and terrorism. This paper will also discuss how the U.S. could align the efforts of these agencies to better protect the nation against digital crimes and terrorism. Keywords: law enforcers, national security, protect, crime The Role of Federal Agencies in Fighting Digital Crime Cyber crooks are always working to steal the privacy and money of hard-working Americans. The computers of American consumers are subject to endless scams and schemes achieved by malicious e-mails, malware turning their computers into unwitting bots that send out unwanted spam, or the plethora of identity theft conjured up by these crooks to steal hard-working people’s privacy and money. The businesses in America are under assault by foreign agents seeking to steal their intellectual property. This crime, according to reports, has led to over $1 trillion to date, and by criminal hackers seeking to rob corporate accounts or to blackmail companies by threatening to release stolen trade secrets. Companies are devastated by these types of crimes, and they...
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