Chinese premier Wen Jiabao described reports of Chinese hackers breaking into German computers as a matter of "grave concern" and said Monday that his country will cooperate with Germany to resolve the matter.
Jiabao's comments, made during a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Beijing, were prompted by a report published two days earlier in the German news magazine Der Spiegel claiming that Chinese hackers had been able to infect German government computers with spyware.
Merkel said that for Chinese relations with industrialized countries to move ahead, everyone needs to "respect a set of game rules" and "protect intellectual property rights."
Security experts from Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and Federal Data Protection Office discovered Trojan horse programs in computers used in several government ministries, including the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Economics and the Research and Development Ministry, as well as Merkel's office, the report in Der Spiegel said.
Although the first Trojan horse software was detected in May, there are continued attempts to sneak spyware into government computers via the Internet, according to Spiegel.
Security experts monitoring data traffic were able to stop the transmission of a 160G-byte file from a German ministry to China, but no one would say if hackers succeeded in stealing other files, the magazine reported.
BSI and the Federal Data Protection Office declined to comment.
A spokesman at the Federal Ministry of the Interior, while declining to comment on the Spiegel story specifically, said that the federal government, in general, is aware of increased efforts to steal information from computers in the private and public sectors.
"We are making a huge effort to ensure that government systems remain protected from outside attacks," the spokesman said. "So far, we've been able to avoid any damage."
(Information from pool reporters located in Beijing was used in this report.)
This whitepaper explains the terminology and concepts behind Data Replication technologies and establishes some sizing rules through worked examples. Learn the new paradigm in disaster tolerance—protect data anywhere.
Download now »
Server virtualization is a popular option for dealing with mounting datacenter costs. Another equally promising approach is the use of an Application Delivery Controller. Citrix NetScaler provides a low-cost way for organizations to reduce their server count and accrue cost savings from a reduction in space, cooling, power and personnel.
Download now »
The emergence of WLANs has created a new breed of security threats to enterprise networks.
Included in HP ProCurve WLAN solutions is security technology that alleviates threats from WLANs through:
* Monitoring wireless activity inside and out of the enterprise
* Classifying WLAN transmissions into harmful and harmless
* Preventing transmissions that pose a security threat to the enterprise network
* Locating participating devices for physical remediation
Effectively address data protection challenges, implementing solutions that help store and protect business–critical data while cutting costs and improving efficiency and reliability.
Download now »
Sign up to receive Security Resource Alerts
This white paper provides guidance on how to develop a strategic approach to managing and monitoring logs, a key function required for compliance with many regulatory mandates and a critical defense against security threats.
Download now! »
Learn about the processes and technologies that support security information management (SIM) operations, as well as the business case for SIM. The series examines different options for implementing SIM and gives you evaluation criteria for selecting the best option for your organization.
Download now! »
Learn the strategies, actions, and capabilities that Best-in-Class organizations employ and technologies they choose to obtain superior performance against various security performance metrics. This report provides guidelines for identifying which security solutions to consume as a MSS and defines best practices for choosing and managing MSSPs.
Download now! »
Recommend This
