Chinese Firm 'Hijacked' U.S. Data - WSJ.com
By MICHAEL R. CRITTENDEN And SHAYNDI RAICE
A state-owned Chinese telecom firm "hijacked" massive volumes of Internet traffic earlier this year by redirecting it unnecessarily through servers in China, a congressionally appointed panel said Wednesday.
During an 18-minute stretch on April 8, China Telecom rerouted traffic sent to about 15% of the Internet's destinations, including branches of the U.S. armed services, the U.S. Senate and companies like Microsoft Corp., the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in its annual report.
The commission, set up by Congress a decade ago to examine the security implications of growing economic ties with China, said it couldn't determine whether the misdirection was malicious or how the messages might have been used. But it said the incident appeared to be part of a broader pattern of computer and Internet exploitation, possibly sponsored by the Chinese government.
"Persistent reports of that nation's use of malicious computer activities raise questions about whether China might seek intentionally...to assert some level of control over the Internet, even for a brief period," the report said.
China Telecom, in a statement, denied "any hijack of Internet traffic."
A Chinese government spokesman didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
State-run Chinese newspaper Global Times reported that Chinese experts were saying the reports have little merit because the majority of data in the world is routed through the U.S.
The incident highlights the security vulnerabilities of the public Internet, which uses a trust-based system to route data from one server to another. Information follows the most efficient path, not necessarily the shortest, and servers advertise their ability to handle traffic.
In the incident on April 8, China Telecom sent erroneous messages that led servers around the world to route traffic through the country, the commission said. The tactic could be used to spy on specific users, disrupt communications or conceal a separate attack, the commission said.
"That is where the flaw is," said Paul Strassmann, a professor of information sciences at George Mason School of Information Technology and Engineering and a former director of defense information at the Pentagon. "There are 100,000 routers in the world. Any router can be spooked to do this."
While it is difficult to establish direct responsibility for such incidents, the sophistication, size and targets of the attacks suggest some level of state support, commission Vice Chairman Carolyn Bartholomew told reporters Tuesday.
The incident comes amid growing concerns on Capitol Hill and in the Pentagon about China's heightened technological capabilities. The Senate version of the annual defense-spending bill includes a provision that would heighten its oversight of technology vendors' supply chains, many of which begin in China. Sprint Nextel Corp. recently rejected bids by Chinese equipment suppliers, largely due to security concerns in Washington.
"Our concern is the potential," said Larry Wortzel, a member of the commission and most recently director of Asian studies at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. "We really don't know whether it was malicious. And what we're doing is saying that if it was, these are the concerns we have. And even if it wasn't, we need to protect against it in the future."
Was just bemused at why he didn't seem to understand what I was driving at.
