Chinese spies’ GhostNet uncovered

By Laura Dignan

Staff Writer

Canadian researchers at the Information Warfare Monitor (IWM) from the University of Toronto discovered an electronic spying operation based out of China. The operation, which the researchers termed "GhostNet," has gained access to 1,000 computers in 103 countries.

The targets of GhostNet have mainly been political – NATO, the Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C. and other foreign ministries, banks, news organizations and Tibetan exile centers in Brussels, London, India and New York.

"These organizations are almost certainly oblivious to the compromised situation in which they find themselves. The computers of diplomats, military attachés, private assistants, secretaries to prime ministers, journalists and others are under the concealed control of unknown assailants."

The cyber-spying process was revealed when the Toronto researchers were asked by the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, to search his organization’s computers in Dharamsala, India for malicious software. While the malware was found to be based in China, the researchers cannot prove that the Chinese government is linked to the operation. Similar attacks and spying operations have been detected on these same networks over the past two years and all have originated in China.

Access to these computers was gained through a Trojan Internet virus called Ghost Rat. GhostNet is able to search computer data content, read e-mails and activate web cameras and microphones to spy on live conversations.

Robert Barnett, director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program at Columbia University, said he and other employees have been getting e-mails containing the virus Ghost Rat for about 18 months. Over time, these e-mails have become extremely sophisticated making it harder for investigators to trace the origin of the spy network.

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