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A report commissioned by a US Congressional advisory panel monitoring the security implications of trading with China has warned that China has started spying on the US government and major companies.

And, says Finjan, the business Internet security specialist, now is the time for companies to start beefing up their IT security defences to stop them falling victim to what appears to be a rash of impending cyber-espionage from the Far East.

” Many cyber attacks and hacker incursions originated from China have been implicated in into Western IT systems in recent years. Obviously it’s hard to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the government there is involved in these attacks, however according to the report it’s quite likely that government is active in this domain,” said Yuval-Ben Itzhak, Finjan’s chief technology officer.

“It’s against this backdrop that we’ve been conducting investigations into Chinese attacks on Western public and private-sector IT systems for some time,” he added.

According to the Finjan CTO, his company’s malicious code research centre (MCRC) conducted in in-depth study into the rising volume of attacks emanating from China and reported that there were some very sophisticated attacks taking place.

In the study, he explained, Finjan’s research team found at least one set of attacks coming from a server group that belongs to a Chinese government office.

Researchers, he said, discovered that some sites in the network lead to Trojan sites that exploit the users’ Web browser software by downloading the Trojan and installing it on the user desktop.

Once the users’ PC has been infected, he went on to say, the Trojan then starts to send data to other Web sites on the Internet-connected network.

Additional sites in the network, meanwhile, were found to monitor and control the attack using statistics as to how many users visit the site and how many got infected.

“And that was two years ago, so you can imagine that the Chinese hacker attack groups – regardless of who they are affiliated to – have increased in their level of technology sophistication, so this report serves as a clear warning to companies of the need to review and enhance their IT security defences,” he said.

“Tools and products to fights against the increasing cybercrime from China are available for US Businesses and individuals. The reason many businesses are becoming victims to these attacks is the lack of knowledge and the false believe that their existing Firewalls and Anti-virus can do the job for them. Although that was the case 10-5 years ago, since cyber criminals introduced new attack techniques Firewall and Anti-virus are not enough to stop today’s cyber attacks.”

Finjan

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5W-1H

Warning!: The author of this blog is still learning English.

Who
This blog is the creation of Guy Gweth, an African strategic & competitive intelligence consultant, member of SCIP. Graduate of the School of Economic Warfare of Paris -among others- , he is the manager of GwethMarshall Consulting, a Cabinet specializing in Competitive Intelligence & Public Affairs in central Africa and specifically in Cameroun, Congo, Gabon, Guinea Equatorial, RCA & Chad.

What
This blog is devoted to the African Competitive Intelligence, in connection with the rest of the world. You will thus find subjects relating to:

1- data-gathering
2- data collected processing
3- analysis of the relevant data
4- benchmark
5- influence &
6- information warfare

Why
Because of the linguistic barrier, central Africa remained a little bit in margin of the Anglo-Saxon community. Thanks to globalization, it is time to diversify our exchanges in the fields of cultural, social, political and especially economic development. For that, all the means of communication are welcome, even with small mistakes.

When
At least once every two months.

Where
On this weblog and on spanish and french versions.

How
By watching, investigating, interviewing, crossing informations, benchmarking, publishing to inform, sensitizing and sharing our results for a rapid development of central Africa companies and of competitive Intelligence.

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