US concerned by China cyber attack claims

news.com.au

THE United States has voiced its concern over a report that China manipulated international internet traffic intended for a major Chinese web service company and used it for a cyber attack on US sites.
STATE Department spokesman Jeff Rathke's comments follow complaints from anti-online censorship group Greatfire.org that Chinese authorities carried out denial-of-service attacks in late March.
"We are concerned by reports that China has used a new cyber capability to interfere with the ability of worldwide internet users to access content hosted outside of China," Rathke told reporters on Friday. The US has asked Chinese authorities to investigate and provide the findings, he said. "We view attacks by malicious cyber actors, who target critical infrastructure, US companies and US consumers, as threats to national security and to the economy of the United States," Rathke said. The cyber attacks intermittently shut down San Francisco-based Github, a US-based computer-code sharing site that hosts some of Greatfire's data. Greatfire.org said it was a direct target of similar attacks earlier that month. Greatfire.org, which has received US government funding, produces mirror websites that let Chinese users see information normally blocked by government censors. Citizen Lab, a research unit based at the University of Toronto, attributed the attack to a system it dubbed the "Great Cannon" that manipulates the traffic of systems outside China, silently programming their browsers to create a massive denial of service attack. In its own report, Greatfire.org alleged that Chinese authorities carried out the attacks by installing malicious code on the computers of users visiting the popular Chinese search engine Baidu and related sites, and used those computers to overwhelm Github and Greatfire.org websites with service requests. Chinese Embassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan said China opposed any form of cyber attack. "We hope that instead of making accusations without solid evidence, the US side can take a more constructive attitude and work together with us to address cyber issues," he said. China's government blocks thousands of websites to prevent what it deems politically sensitive information from reaching Chinese users. That is known as the "Great Firewall."