Indian officials accuse China of cyber attacks

China is actively engaged in mapping India's computer networks, according to the Times of India.

China is mounting "almost daily" attacks against Indian Government computer systems, including scanning networks for possible vulnerabilties to exploit in the event of conflict, said the TOI. According to the article, over the last two months China has attacked the Indian National Infomatics Centre, and the Ministry of External Affairs.

The Chinese are also compromising Indian computers to create botnets for possible future Ddos attacks, and installing keyloggers for espionage purposes, the article claimed.

While this wouldn't surprise me, it also wouldn't surprise me if all major countries with sophisticated IT infrastructures were doing the same thing. I've talked to UK politicians before who have told me, in a head scratching way, that a scan of their computers (it was by guys from Trend Micro) revealed that there were over 30 pieces of malware installed, including keyloggers, on their computers in the Houses of Parliament.

Who has subverted those systems? Why, probably everybody who could.

The Times of India claim echoed comments made to me at the recent Infosecurity Europe 2008 by Alan Paller, the director of research for the SANS Institute, who said that 25 countries were all engaged in some form of cyber intelligence gathering, while countries including China and France also gather commercial intelligence on private sector organisations.

"My guess is there are 25 countries being involved in this at some level or another," said Paller. "The commercial side of it seems to be more China and France."