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Government China United States

China Claims NSA Infiltrated Country's Telecommunications Networks (cnbc.com) 66

Posted by BeauHD from the rising-tensions dept.
A U.S. intelligence agency gained access to China's telecommunications network after hacking a university, Chinese state media claimed Thursday. CNBC reports: The U.S. National Security Agency used phishing -- a hacking technique where a malicious link is included in an email -- to gain access to the government funded Northwestern Polytechnical University, the Global Times alleged, citing an unnamed source. American hackers stole "core technology data including key network equipment configuration, network management data, and core operational data," and other files, according to the Global Times. As part of the NSA's hack, the agency infiltrated Chinese telecommunications operators so that the U.S. could "control the country's infrastructure," the Global Times alleged. The Global Times, citing its unnamed source, reported that more details about the attack on Northwestern Polytechnical University will be released soon. China first disclosed the alleged attack on the Northwestern Polytechnical University earlier this month. "The agency also accused the U.S. of engaging in 'tens of thousands' of cyberattacks on Chinese targets," adds CNBC.
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China Claims NSA Infiltrated Country's Telecommunications Networks More

China Claims NSA Infiltrated Country's Telecommunications Networks

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  • Thanks for the happy news. :)

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Indeed! We taxpayers give NSA lots of money. I'm glad they achieved something noteworthy with it.

      And I hope they planted some Winnie-the-Porn in the process as icing on the tax cake.

      • In other news: The USA claims China invaded its networks.

        Film at 11.

      • Yea at least they're hacking someone else this time.

      • Yeah ... as a Canadian, I noted that the Snowden leaks contained the nuggets that the NSA had also infiltrated RBC (at the time, largest bank in Canada, and my employer), and Rogers (largest telecom company in Canada).

        Yep, good to know that your taxpayer dollars are going towards backdooring your neighbour to the north! Couldn't possibly have any long-term negative repercussions, could it?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          Do you deny Canada spies on US?

        • We really should play fair and give all the tyrants a fair chance. That darn NSA just wont do it. All they care about is snooping into other country's plan's for destruction of western civilization. You know the type, invade your neighboring country and blatantly slaughter the civilian populationI. Blame it on the victims and terrorize and make ridicules demands in the rest of the world. That barbaric country even planted an asset in the US, that duped half of the population with devious schemes and a com

  • Must Be (Score:4, Funny)

    by Thelasko ( 1196535 ) on Thursday September 22, 2022 @07:38PM (#62906315) Journal
    The must have built their 5G network on that low priced Motorola hardware from the US.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      That's actually exactly how China promotes Huawei 5G gear. Obviously they claim it isn't backdoored, but assuming you don't trust any foreign hardware the question becomes who do you want spying on you? China, who generally leaves other countries alone and doesn't force its values on them*, or the US which practices regime change and uses sanctions and trade embargos in place of honest competition?**

      * Except countries they claim are part of China, obviously.
      ** That's how it's pitched, I'm not saying it's tr

      • I'm seeing "Spy vs Spy" here...Sergio, we miss you...

      • Re:Must Be (Score:4)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <[ten.frow] [ta] [todhsals]> on Friday September 23, 2022 @09:53AM (#62907391)

        That's actually exactly how China promotes Huawei 5G gear. Obviously they claim it isn't backdoored, but assuming you don't trust any foreign hardware the question becomes who do you want spying on you? China, who generally leaves other countries alone and doesn't force its values on them*, or the US which practices regime change and uses sanctions and trade embargos in place of honest competition?**

        * Except countries they claim are part of China, obviously.
        ** That's how it's pitched, I'm not saying it's true. Think about how it looks from the outside.

        China forces its values on other countries plenty. They don't do it as part of the contract you sign, but as part of the whole "you owe us" strategy. That was the entire point behind the "belt and suspenders" philosophy - they build completely useless infrastructure that countries don't need, making them completely indebted to China. They then use that indebtedness to leverage diplomatic power from it.

        For example, every country China has "helped" by building useless mega highways or ultramodern airports has to promote the concept that Taiwan is a part of China and not a separate nation.

        Admittedly, it's a brilliant strategy employed by China to use soft-power status rather than military might to achieve its goals.

        This same power is how China seems to skirt a bunch of rules with practically everything - genocide? Doesn't exist - because a "bunch of countries" say so as well.

        And talk about things like freedom and democracy, ditto.

        You can bet a lot of countries are trying to stay as neutral pas possible on the whole Ukraine war thing - because China.

        China is exploiting democracy by effectively blackmailing countries economically to vote their way or to follow their rules.

        China also knows they want to play the western world against Russia as long as possible because it'll hamstring the economies which will hopefully give power to China as an economic powerhouse. And would you want your world ruled by China, or the US? Do you want a supreme leader to look up to everyday and worship, or have to deal with the crap that Fox News spews out but at least be able to spew out that crap without being rounded up and disappeared?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Just to remind everyone, I'm not condoning what they do, just saying we should be aware of it because it's working.

          You are right about Taiwan and the Uyghurs, but really that's a very small price for a country or a company to pay for these kinds of deals. What I am referring to is the really serious economic stuff, the sanctions, the "all transactions in USD are under our jurisdiction" stuff. Trying to extradite Huawei employees who were in another country at the time of the alleged crimes.

          And yes, that doe

  • China espousing Republican Values (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    China's Huawei company was banned from many nations networks because of the fear of their overreaching monitoring of communications.
    (every accusation is an admission.)

  • We have to hand it to the NSA. Hack China once [slashdot.org] and you're doing your job. Hack China twice [slashdot.org], and you're showing off. Hack China THREE TIMES IN A SINGLE MONTH [slashdot.org] and it probably means that editors should do a search for China's Northwestern Polytechnic before posting another story about the first hack.

    FWIW, the other stories associated with this university are about a "microscopic underwater sonic screwdriver" and using acoustic levitation on rats. So if the US soon leads the world in training rats to disassembl

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      this university are about a "microscopic underwater sonic screwdriver"

      I'm familiar with NW Polytechnic. Sounds like the work of Dr Hu.

  • Welcome to the club (Score:2, Insightful)

    by JThundley ( 631154 )

    They infiltrated our telecom networks too, it sucks.

  • Wait, so the NSA is doing to China what it does to the US?
    https://theintercept.com/2018/... [theintercept.com]

    Next they'll tell us that Amazon is ALSO tracking Chinese purchases on its platform or that US TV Manufacturers capture Chinese voices without telling them. It's all right there in the manual-en-us.pdf, dummies.

    • US TV Manufacturers capture Chinese voices without telling them.

      Not that one; there are no US TV manufacturers.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by gavron ( 1300111 )

        > ...there are no US TV manufacturers...

        I looked that one up before I posted, thinking the same thing. I didn't include the links because I figured other people might want to check their assumptive prejudice before posting. My apologies for having overesitmated.

        Link for searching in 2022: https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]

        Some names that pop up in no particular order:
        PHILIPS
        MAGNAVOX
        OLEVIA
        SILO
        VIZIO (Yeah, IKR, but California based)

        I'm going to out on a limb and say that 5 is statistically different than

  • Hard to feel sorry for China (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bjdevil66 ( 583941 ) on Thursday September 22, 2022 @08:51PM (#62906449)

    Even if the NSA did what the Chinese say they did (and the NSA probably did), this is just a PR move to slam the USA.

    They've been stealing American and other western IP for decades. (That J-20 sure looks a LOT like the YF-23, doesn't it?)

    • I agree that stealing stuff and IP and just general scamming and bullshitting is a public sport in China.
      But this:

      (That J-20 sure looks a LOT like the YF-23, doesn't it?)

      Not really. (?)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Eh, everyone steals everyone else's IP. It's been going on forever. The French stole Soviet IP for the Concorde supersonic airliner, causing a fatal crash. Hollywood was famously built on stolen IP. The secret of silk production was stolen from China. A Japanese guy learned all he could about brewing whisky in Scotland, then took that knowledge back to Japan. The British copied the German air/sea recuse pods that downed aviators could use to survive the harsh conditions of the English Channel and North Sea.

      • The French stole Soviet IP for the Concorde supersonic airliner

        it was the other way around

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Probably that too. But definitely the French, to their plane caused a crash when it got too close trying to get photos of the Tu-144.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by _merlin ( 160982 )

      That J-20 sure looks a LOT like the YF-23, doesn't it?

      No, it doesn't at all. The YF-23 uses a trapezoidal wing with V tails and no conventional foreplanes or tailplanes. The J-20 uses a delta wing with canard foreplanes and conventional tail fins. The fuselage is completely different, too. Even the engine exhausts don't look at all similar - the YF-23 has a design presumably intended to reduce radar cross section, while the J-20 uses a conventional design.

      The J-20 doesn't even bear more than a passing r

  • No three letter agency required. It was either hacked from the factory or just a script kiddie discovering metasploit.

  • It was a huawei network ... or should I say Nortel network? Its settled history that huawei stole it. Maybe knowing the architecture, source code, etc, gave the Yankees some insight into how to hack it?
    • It was a phishing attack so this was just NSA exploiting a WIndows install and getting the admin passwords for the network from there. This was not them using backdoors in network equipment.
  • NSA hacked every country's telecommunication system.

  • What's sauce for the goose..... (Score:3)

    by haruchai ( 17472 ) on Thursday September 22, 2022 @11:02PM (#62906645)

    is also sauce for the BBQ duck

  • Maybe NSA infiltrated a honeypot and China's trying to convince them they successfully hacked them.

  • It should be noted that in the US a successful hack of a university would not lead to the compromise of a national telecomm network.
    Presumably the telco set up the uni network? So all the efficiencies of totalitarian centralization also magnify the foibles of human error in bugs, configuration error, credential reuse, certificate flaws, etc.
    Here everybody does a bad job differently.

  • china getting ataste of their own medicine. Hopefully NSA also foundsome useful IP originated in china not stolen. Unlikely but hope does not cost much. fuck ccp and xitler

  • Another day, another Chinese Government amazed-Pikachu-face reaction when someone does it to them.

    I'm not sure who they are trying to fool. It isn't working on me.

    Countries spy on each other, the USA too.

  • Always makes me wonder, why that PR? Sure it could just be to highlight some misdeed by US agencies (which rare not hard to believe), but coming from countries like China/Russia/North Korea (among others) there is always a high chance this is pure politics.

    I would probably believe the news if it was voiced by the EU, but China (like Russia) has strong incentives to make up some fake story (or completely alter some real story) to serve their agenda. In particular, given how Russia's tentative of annexation

  • "We do it all the time and everywhere but we finally caught the NSA doing it and it is wrong!" LOL Fuck off!
  • Opposite Day!
  • Well, now they know what it's like to be an American.

    • They must prove it.
      We should all assume the NSA has been inside their systems ever since they began using computers because that probably has been the case and the NSA denies it; otherwise, this is not new.

  • I mean c'mon, Huawei.

  • This mostly looks like Spy vs. Spy stuff. Pretty much everyone spies on everyone, always, friend on friend as much as friend on frenemy and enemy on enemy. So yes, the US is probably up to their elbows in almost everyone's networks, and Israel is probably up to their elbows in the networks of the US and Russia and China and all their neighbors, and China is up to their elbows in the networks of the Koreas, Russia, the US, etc. In some cases for good reason - I expect the Chinese trust their sometimes-all

  • Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty Need there be anything more to say? I am calling you out Huawei equipment in US telecom networks. Screw you Chinese commie party.

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