Chinese Spies penetrate Britain’s defence industry
Britain’s GCHQ – its main defence against cyber warfare – has discovered that Chinese hackers working for its government, have hacked into computers belonging to BAE Systems, Britain’s largest defence industry company. Stolen are details about the design and performance of the £ 200 billion Joint Strike Fighter. The company is building the aircraft in a joint-venture with Europe and the United States.
The multi-national project is intended to give NATO a new plane that will provide NATO with air supremacy for years. It is scheduled to come into use in two years.
The fear is that the jet’s ultra-sophisticated capabilities will not only have been compromised but give China a lead in aerial warfare.
Details of the attack emerged when GCHQ discovered the hacking during a check on BAE’s computers.
“What is disturbing is how hackers were able to penetrate company’s computer system and leave no trace for some time”, said Professor Anthony Glees, director of Britain’s Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies.
The cyber attack on BAE came in the wake of a year of cyber attacks on Britain’s defence industry. “This year they have averaged thousand a month”, said Glee.
Joel Brenner, a former chief of American counter-intelligence nodded: “I cannot think there is any huge defence contractors which has not been penetrated”.
A sign of the sensitivity of the accusation that China had hacked into BAE emerged when its embassy in London took the unprecedented step of publicly saying accusations it had attacked BAE computers “are a baseless accusation. China condemns all forms of online crime”.
But Philip Davies, director of the Brunel Centre for Intelligence – which works closely with the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office – said:
“We have run a study of the very sophisticated attacks on BAE. Only the Chinese would have mounted it with such skill. They used a spear phishing tactic”.
“Spear phishing is a form of cyber war in which targets are sent messages from hackers pretending to be somebody else in order to gain access to details of names and passwords”.
Davies said: “We now know that in the case of BAE the tactics used were to say the messages were from the National Security Agency. We found that the BAE computers, despite their security, responded”.
More alarming for GCHQ was that details about the Joint Strike Force jet fighter, had been targeted in the United States, American contractors working with BAE had also been simultaneously penetrated during the hacking into BAE.
In Washington there is speculation that the spiralling costs of the F-35 fighter programme is due to the cost of devising new radar systems for the aircraft.
Joel Brenner said: “If nothing else, what the Chinese have achieved is to delay the programme for the fighter. For a pilot who cannot depend on his radar, the core of what the Chinese would want, is to make his aircraft more or less of little use”.
The attack on the BAE computers comes at a time when both GCHQ and NSA in the United States are working to develop high grade computers to counter those China uses in its cyber war against the West.
GCHQ is still recovering from budget cuts which began following the end of the Cold War.
It is also currently facing a new problem: the inquest into the death of one of its brightest experts, Gareth Williams.
Due to start in April 23, the coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, has said she will wish to “publicly probe” if Williams was “murdered by secret agents specialising in the dark arts” when his naked body was found in a sports bag in an MI6 safe house two years ago.
A pre-inquest hearing – itself an unusual occurrence – has now heard that Williams might have died from hypercapnia. Both Russian and Chinese intelligence services are known to have developed it as a weapon.
Dr Wilcox told the hearing “I will follow the evidence where ever it takes me”.
Meantime it has emerged Chinese hackers also set up a fake Facebook account in the name of Admiral James Stavridis.
Officials at SHAPE, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers, Europe, confirmed that the Admiral had been targeted. “This type of compromising attempt is called ‘social engineering’ and has nothing to do with hacking or espionage”.
NATO officials asked the networking site to remove the fake page. Facebook said false accounts have very different footprints from normal users and are identified using the most sophisticated techniques.
An MoD spokesman said: “We issue guidance on the risks and benefits of channels such as Facebook”.
Fake Facebook accounts is the latest tactic to spy on key figures. This is further proof Chinese Intelligence is increasing their use of ‘electronic warfare’ to target not just military secrets but every aspect of western life.
Friday, 4 May 2012