(via QandO) An innocuous story about a new computer virus from China making the rounds has some truly disturbing undertones.
An insidious computer virus recently discovered on digital photo frames has been identified as a powerful new Trojan Horse from China that collects passwords for online games – and its designers might have larger targets in mind.
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The authors of the new Trojan Horse are well-funded professionals whose malware has “specific designs to capture something and not leave traces,” Grayek said. “This would be a nuclear bomb” of malware.
By studying how the code is constructed and how it’s propagated, Computer Associates has traced the Trojan to a specific group in China, Grayek said. He would not name the group.
So it’s from a group that Grayek doesn’t feel comfortable naming that consists of “well-funded professionals”. That is the Chinese military, and I’d bet my secret neoconservative decoder ring on it.
As I mentioned in this post last year, and this post from January, the Chinese military has a massive branch of hackers working around the clock testing our defenses. They are always trying to find a way into our military/governmental networks.
Since the virus was transmitted by peripheral devices, in this case electronic picture frames, which were somehow infected during the manufacturing process in China, it isn’t too far out there to believe that military entities would be permitted to add in the virus. Especially not in a communist country like China, where you already have a government hand reaching into every export business and quasi-capitalist enterprise.
While the article doesn’t touch on what the “larger target” might be, if you read between the lines not only is it obvious that this is the Chinese military, but you can be sure the real target here is our military. In the event of a conflict over Taiwan, which seems to be drifting closer and closer every day, the Chinese would love to be able to instantly disable our tech-dependent military. They would be able to turn what is one of the most impressive aspects of our armed forces, the technological superiority, against us in an instant.
The same thing can be said for their satellite-killer weapons. If you can physically disable the GPS that our military depends on for every planning system we employ, you’ve blinded the United States. Equally crippling would be a virus that gave the Chinese access to our networks, where they could simply ‘turn off’ our ability to contact the military communication/targeting systems. That is the best case scenario. Worst case scenario would see Chinese military hackers sending false orders to military units deployed around the globe, fake satellite data that could lead to attacks on friendly units, or unauthorized launch of American defense systems.
Let’s not even get into what would happen if the Chinese interrupted the financial systems of Wall Street. I find this less likely given their heavy investment, but if a conflict was actually initiated, all bets would be off. The Chinese would have planned for it well ahead of time.
We may be seeing that all preparation now. I hope I’m just being too pessimistic. Either way, I hope that there are a lot of men with black suits in Washington investigating all this. I have a feeling they are, after that latest spy-ring bust.
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