UK spooks spooked by possible Chinese hacking

MI5 warns of suspected corporate espionage onslaught.

The UK security service MI5 has issued an alert to 300 leading firms, warning them to ensure best possible security measures are in place to combat potential espionage attempts by Chinese hackers.

The warning, sent to company bosses and IT security heads, was leaked to the press and the

story

appeared on the front page of Saturday’s

Times

newspaper. MI5 chief Jonathan Evans apparently suggests that Chinese government agencies are behind the attacks, using custom malware to penetrate networks and harvest sensitive data, including technical and financial information from corporate, political and military organisations.

Since the first reports, the Chinese government has issue strong rebuttals of the claims (more in the

Times


here

), while further

reports

in the

Telegraph

have stated that consultancy firm

KPMG

has been called in to help coordinate reports of espionage and attempts to secure corporate networks.

Posted on 05 December 2007 by

Virus Bulletin