U.S. accuses China of Microsoft hack, disruptive and destabilizing behavior

Due to it politicising everything, for its own agendas, by the usual player, and based on historical precedents.

I take everything coming out from there, with a pinch of salt, perhaps, some politicians will be wise to do the same??

Western governments don't steal commercial IP and hand it to their own companies in the manner of China, nor do they engage in ransomware attacks.

Western intelligence organizations do not wholesale steal the IP of private firms and give this to private firms in their country

How adorable... About 30 years ago I might have answered similarly but much experience, revelation, and observing obvious behavior has burnt that faith in MY SIDE completely out of me. I suspect the average Chinese person would deny their country's behavior as would the average Russian in much the same words, and they would believe it too. But, fact is, we're all the same and are all programmed with the same US versus THEM mentalities implanted into us in our developmental milieus. A Sox fan has no good word to say about a Yankee nor a Yankee fan about the Sox (white). Competitors rarely have complimentary things to say about each other but the real trap is buying into your side's lies, and we ALL do n one way or another. But, I can tell you, if you adopt as your most basic 'identity' Human, rather than some strident nationalism, things will begin to look different to you fairly soon.

Not US-related, my colleague had a relative who worked in NEC as the senior administrator in the IT field. The security incompetence inside the NEC is astounding as all hardware and software are largely outdated. Security breaches happen so regularly every day that the NEC cybersecurity teams, mostly Vietnamese and Indian, simply give up due to the underfunding and endless meetings with the oyajis who don't make any decision! Who knows how much data was stolen from NEC by Chinese, Russian, and other global hackers daily?

Meanwhile, Japan wants to join the Five Eyes, then the country will be a treasure trove for the global hackers.

Nothing new, no surprise.

US has made China a convenient blame target for every damn thing. They get unnecessarily agitated and frustrated without making an allegation against Beijing each single day..

What to say?..

For those who doubt the veracity of the claims about China's hacking, you can read open source descriptions of Chinese hacking by private IT security firms like Fireeye and others. Here is a detailed description of the recent Kaseya ransomware hack.

Like private IT security firms cannot be in bed with non-private or government organs. Nobody can be trusted, everybody is fighting for infuence, for the unsuspecting minds. we are in an age that one cannot even trust their siblings.

Hacks leave a trail behind them.

Yes, but you still have to tie the trail to the agent.

Western governments don't steal commercial IP and hand it to their own companies in the manner of China,

And how exactly do you know this? Or are you just making assumptions? The US receives enormous intelligence advantages by having the world's leading tech companies and platforms based in Silicon Valley. Why wouldn't they protect the dominance of key companies as a matter of national security? They would be foolish not to.

It's naive to imagine that western governments aren't also engage in industrial espionage. The western companies who benefit from industrial espionage may not even be aware that they are beneficiaries. All they see is that some of this years new H1B recruits have extraordinarily innovative ideas.

yes, I know.

There's always Ubuntu or Kali Linux.

Apple rocks, Microsoft blows, everybody that doesn't think my way is delusional and stubborn. HA!

So when you hear someone say, "The US hacks all the time" don't think it's all the same.

So do you think the NSA is stall hacking the German Chancellery?

Asking for a friend.

It would be interesting if we could get reports from China or Russia regarding American hacking of THEIR systems but that is very unlikely in the controlled Western Press

What makes you think they know they are being hacked?

The west spies on their adversaries militaries and diplomats. Western governments don't steal commercial IP and hand it to their own companies in the manner of China, nor do they engage in ransomware attacks. Western internet spying is basically an on-line version of what spies have done for centuries trying to learn their adversaries secrets, how their weapons work, their level of tech, their war plans and the intentions of their leadership. Those are legitimate objects of espionage. Western intelligence organizations do not wholesale steal the IP of private firms and give this to private firms in their country to avoid having to do the hard work of developing the tech themselves. That is a whole different level of commercial theft no different than if Chinese spies broke into corporate offices and stole the material that way.

There's a difference here.

Government to government hacking for secrets is done all the time, for example when Russia hacked US government and other worldwide governments in what's the biggest hack in history last year, all under Trump, whose response was to stick his thumb up his rear and ask what was wrong with having good relations with Russia.

Or when Obama and Israel teamed up to go after Irans's nuclear program with Stuxnet, started under Bush.

That's one side.

The other is industrial espionage or just straight up theft from private businesses. Thats usually done by criminal hacking organizations for profit, which is what the recent hacks have been. With these it's hard to see if there is a direct link between the hackers and government. Attacks originate from Russia and China, but establishing government involvement becomes murky.

Did Putin gain by hacking Colonial Pipeline? That's what's hard to tell. We know it originated from Russia but linking it their government is really, really difficult, and that's why you see statements like this in the article above:

"The bloc also stopped short of directly blaming the Chinese government but called on Beijing to "take all appropriate measures" to clamp down."

Why? Because they don't have the evidence that the hackers are working with the Chinese government. In that situation it's hard to hold the government responsible for the actions of criminals in their country. With Russia, Biden made it clear that if the US hands over intelligence showing Russian individuals are responsible, he expects Putin to act, even if Putin isn't behind it. That's the direction we are moving towards with both countries.

So when you hear someone say, "The US hacks all the time" don't think it's all the same. Biden isn't working with US criminals to shut down a Chinese trucking company to get his cut of a $20 million payday. I'm sure he is actively trying to hack Russian and Chinese government assets, tho.

The good news is that we have a leader in the White House who is taking action by building a worldwide coalition rather than crapping on the heads of our allies and going it alone. Now the US has much more leverage with a united front.

You think Macs are secure? Oh you sweet summer child.

As iPad and iPhones became popular malware to attack them became abundant. They are no more secure than Macroshaft. That old line about Macs being secure comes from a time when Macs were so few and far between hackers ignored them. That is emphatically not true today. Today even Linux has threats and the threats to Apple OS are of the same scale as the threats to Macroshaft.

Foxconn makes products for many companies, not just Apple. Let's put this myth to bed.

Of course. But you can hardly expect Acer, for example, a Taiwanese company, to build their products anywhere else than China. You can, on the other hand, criticize Apple with its cooler-than-thou image for using sweatshops. And not to make their products cheaper, but only to maximize their already gigantic profits. Disgusting capitalistic behaviour is a scale, and Apple is one the heaviest offenders.

For those who doubt the veracity of the claims about China's hacking, you can read open source descriptions of Chinese hacking by private IT security firms like Fireeye and others. Here is a detailed description of the recent Kaseya ransomware hack.

https://www.zscaler.com/blogs/security-research/kaseya-supply-chain-ransomware-attack-technical-analysis-revil-payload

Here is a more general description of the many Advanced Persistent Threats by Fireeye.

https://www.fireeye.com/current-threats/apt-groups.html

Hacks leave a trail behind them. Often firms like Fireeye will penetrate the hacking cells themselves and record their keystrokes as they hack. Read this older description of APT ! based in Shanghai. It is a good read albeit very long but it explains in great detail how the Chinese infiltrate firms IT systems and steal their IP.

https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye-www/services/pdfs/mandiant-apt1-report.pdf

Mandiant became Fireeye. They were even able to identify individuals in the unit.

You are aware macs are also regularly hacked too, right?

Not even remotely close to the level Windows are. There is a reason why Apple is the largest private PC company in the world and why people are switching.

You mean he should have shamelessly stolen ideas from other companies and then sold them as their own with a 200% price markup for absolutely no reason?

And made it even better, sure. Jobs was smart, Gates wasn’t in the end, the nature of the corporate competitive beast.

 feel you on that one, but since the liberal big tech Oligarchs sold us out to the Chinese we can’t be in the dark, as much as I hate taking some things from that nation, there’s no choice unless these tech fools stop outsourcing to the Chinese.

There are American made computers and laptops. They tend to be high end gaming computers with very fast processors and the highest quality displays but they are out there. If you speak to the people at Velocity Micro they will tell you the only two components in their computers from China are the outer case and battery. The rest of the components come from Taiwan or the US and they are assembled in Virginia. I'm buying one and having it set up as a Linux only machine. They will do that. The machine will never in its life have any software from Macroshaft or Apple. Surprisingly some Lenovo models are assembled in the US.

Digital Storm and Falcon Northwest are two other US computer manufacturers. Check out Falcon Northwest's DRX "laptop". DRX apparently stands for Desktop Replacement Extreme. Every Falcon Northwest computer is custom built to the buyers specifications. Still cheaper than an iMac Pro.

There are alternatives to buying from China so shop carefully everyone.

I personally don't support Apple because their products are made by Chinese sweatshop workers, but to each his own values I guess.

Foxconn makes products for many companies, not just Apple. Let's put this myth to bed.

Foxconn Major customers:

The following list consists of Foxconn's present or past major customers. The list is provided in alphabetical order.

Their country of origin or base of operations is in parentheses.

Acer Inc. (Taiwan)[89]

Amazon.com (United States)[10]

Apple Inc. (United States)[90]

BlackBerry Ltd. (Canada)[91]

Cisco (United States)[92]

Dell (United States)[93]

Fisker Inc (United States) [94]

Google (United States)[95]

Hewlett-Packard (United States)[96]

Huawei (China)[97]

InFocus (United States)

Intel (United States)

Lenovo (China)

Microsoft Corp. (United States)[98][99]

Motorola Mobility (United States)[93]

Nintendo (Japan)[100]

HMD Global (Under Nokia Brand) (Finland)[90][101]

Sega (Japan)

Sony (Japan)[102]

Toshiba (Japan)[103]

Vizio (United States)[104]

Xiaomi (China)[105]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Major_customers

If you use any Microsoft services, it was very clear yesterday that things were not working well, that is, if you could connect at all. They bumbled through but today also there are delays and eternal pauses in the service.

And, just saying in response to "...and get rid of the H-1B visas..." American conservatives have so trashed the American educational system that America NEEDS to steal talent from wherever it can and China has a very fine commitment to STEM whereas America has an equally strong commitment to football. After the American 'troubles' of the 1960's, all of the conservative think tanks (for e.g. see Cato) unanimously agreed that Americans were over-educated and their expectations too high and set about dumbing down our schools, cutting funds to education (for e.g. see: DeVos), and generally helping to disable American leadership in the world for their own benefit and no competent native oversight. 26 Trillion dollars in debt is the result. My guess would be that, at this time, relatively more patents for American companies come out of H-1B workers and researchers than their American counterparts. I'm an American and I KNOW our history and this destruction of the American educational system is just a small, but significant, part of what is tearing America apart.

Macs only for me.

You think Macs are secure? Oh you sweet summer child.

It would be interesting if we could get reports from China or Russia regarding American hacking of THEIR systems but that is very unlikely in the controlled Western Press. It's ALWAYS the other guy with us. We, The Worthy, would never stoop to trying to cripple competitors systems or, perhaps, we can't. That would be even more reason to suppress our own attempts. Neither Russia nor China, to my knowledge have sold out their people by 'privatizing' strategic assets, handing them to people who divert what would be spent on security into profits. When the U.S. southeastern pipeline was disabled, the buck should have fallen squarely on the corporation responsible for the pipeline and its apparently transparent security rather than a lot of hand wringing and whining about "THEM" doing to us (so easily). And in our current world, if it came out that the hacking was done by another American group or an ally trying to tank the stock of the pipeline company for a hostile takeover, who, if they are paying attention to details, would actually be surprised?

I feel you on that one, but since the liberal big tech Oligarchs sold us out to the Chinese we can’t be in the dark

What?

hire qualified Americans and get rid of the H-1B student visas

...what?

but at least Macs are more secure

You are aware macs are also regularly hacked too, right? They're less targeted because they're less used overall, but they are pretty much as just vulnerable as Windows. On of their biggest hacks happened last April.

Gates should have taken a page from these men.

You mean he should have shamelessly stolen ideas from other companies and then sold them as their own with a 200% price markup for absolutely no reason?

I personally don't support Apple because their products are made by Chinese sweatshop workers, but to each his own values I guess.

I feel you on that one, but since the liberal big tech Oligarchs sold us out to the Chinese we can’t be in the dark, as much as I hate taking some things from that nation, there’s no choice unless these tech fools stop outsourcing to the Chinese, hire qualified Americans and get rid of the H-1B student visas but at least Macs are more secure, I am great full to Jobs and Cook for that. Gates should have taken a page from these men.

NATO issued a statement condemning malicious cyber activity and offering of "solidarity" over the Microsoft hacking without directly assigning blame, while noting that allies United States, Britain and Canada found China to be responsible.

A US official said it was the first time that NATO -- the Western military alliance whose members include Hungary and Turkey, which have comparatively cordial relations with Beijing -- has condemned cyber activity from China.

It follows a summit last month in which NATO took up China, part of what Biden says is a more collaborative, alliance-driven strategy to face Beijing after Trump's predilection for harsh rhetoric.

File this under things that would not have happened under a Trump Administration.

I support minimum standards for all business/private entities. It's those old advertising security holes that has brought us to where we are today. All software should be forced to meet minimum standards or not be usable on computers and especially phones & tablets.

This is a huge undertaking but it has to happen.

Macs only for me.

I personally don't support Apple because their products are made by Chinese sweatshop workers, but to each his own values I guess.

The March 2021 hacking of Windows Exchange is the reason you never used Windows...for the plus 30 years it exists?

Macs only for me.

this is another reason why I never bothered with Windows.

The March 2021 hacking of Windows Exchange is the reason you never used Windows...for the plus 30 years it exists?

China is just going buck wild on this administration, relentless, emboldened and this is another reason why I never bothered with Windows.

I am sure that the U.S. is doing it's share of hacking too. NO super power these days can become one without spying.

the United States coordinated its statement Monday with allies -- the European Union, Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan and NATO.

A coalition. That's how you do it.