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Chinese spies: Coming to a PC near you?

30.03.2009
By now you've probably read about that was uncovered after the office of the Dalai Lama asked researchers at the University of Toronto to examine their computers for malware. The researchers not only found nasties there, they uncovered an entire network that connected almost 1,300 computers in 103 countries -- mostly government organizations, but also some machines at private companies, offices of NATO, and the Associated Press. (You can read .)

All of them had been infected with the Gh0st RAT (remote access tool) that turned their hard drives into an all-you-eat data buffet and their computers into RC toys. Per the :

The malware is remarkable both for its sweep -- in computer jargon, it has not been merely "phishing" for random consumers' information, but "whaling" for particular important targets -- and for its Big Brother-style capacities. It can, for example, turn on the camera and audio-recording functions of an infected computer, enabling monitors to see and hear what goes on in a room. The investigators say they do not know if this facet has been employed.

Well, that explains those "Tibetan Monks Gone Wild" videos I've been seeing advertised. Talk about raw, uncensored, and out of control. Hello Dalai!

As to the culprits, the Toronto researchers are somewhat circumspect. Chinese hackers? Probably. Spies working for the Chinese government? Maybe. It could also be freelance "patriotic hackers," or even Russian or CIA spooks trying to make the Chinese government look worse than it already does, say the researchers.

Security wonks at the University of Cambridge, on the other hand, aren't pulling any punches. In a report titled The Snooping Dragon: social-malware surveillance of the Tibetan movement, U.K. researchers Shishir Nagaraja and Ross Anderson accuse the Chinese government of running the spy show.