Clandestine Methods
The cyber attack against Solid Oak provides a rare look at the clandestine methods in play as high-tech spies and digital combatants seek to gain a brass-knuckle advantage in the global economy, from trade disputes to big-dollar deals to lawsuits. U.S. officials say that China in particular uses its national security apparatus for such intrusions, targeting thousands of U.S. and European corporations and blurring the traditional lines of espionage.
While his civil case was pending, Milburn didn’t discuss the cyber intrusion publicly, saying only that the company and its Los Angeles-based law firm had received e-mails containing spyware. He had no idea who was behind it until last August, when he provided malware samples to a security firm at the request of a Bloomberg reporter.
A forensic analysis of the malware by Joe Stewart, a threat expert at Atlanta-based Dell SecureWorks, identified the intruders who rifled Solid Oak’s networks as a team of Shanghai-based hackers involved in a string of sensitive national security-related breaches going back years.
Many Victims
Commercial hacker hunters -- who refer to the team as the Comment group, for the hidden program code they use known as “comments” -- tie it to a multitude of victims that include the the president of the European Union Council, major defense contractors and even Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. The group has been linked to the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military, according to leaked classified cables.
The Solid Oak attack is a micro tale of what some of the U.S. and Europe’s largest corporations have experienced, says Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican from Michigan who chairs the House Intelligence Committee. The campaign to steal private files and intellectual property, even to the point of collapsing businesses, amounts to a criminal racket for commercial gain, says Rogers.
“I used to work organized crime in Chicago -- I don’t know, but it sure seems like there are a lot of similarities,” says Rogers, a former FBI agent.