TORONTO – Canadian-based researchers have shed light on the dark world of cyberspying.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010/04/06/13480731-qmi.html
Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, said they have uncovered how a complex ecosystem of cyber espionage used seemingly innocent social websites like Twitter for sinister purposes.
“Networks such as these thrive as a result of a vacuum at the global level,” Diebert said. Shadows in the Cloud: Investigating Cyber Espionage 2.0 provides details on cyber attacks against the Indian government, Dalai Lama, United Nations and other countries.
The Shadow Network, linked back to two individuals in China, obtained classified and personal information, compromising governments businesses and academic computer networks, according to the researchers.
While the report found no evidence that the People’s Republic of China, or any other government, was involved in the high tech thefts, it did question whether China would take action to stop it.
The researchers argue that without global conventions on cyberspace, the information highway becomes too dangerous to navigate.
“There is a real risk of a perfect storm in cyberspace erupting out of this vacuum that threatens to subvert cyberspace itself, either through over reaction, a spiraling arms race, the imposition of heavy-handed controls or through gradual irrelevance as people disconnect out of fear of insecurity,” the report says.
The investigation was a collaborative effort by the Information Warfare Monitor (Citizen Lab, Munk School of Affairs, University of Toronto and SecDev Group) and the Shadowserver Foundation (volunteer security professionals).
