China Hacked a Navy Contractor and Stole 600GB of Data

Hackers working for the Chinese government compromised a US Navy contractor and stole a massive cache of highly sensitive data, including details about a planned supersonic anti-ship missile, American officials said Friday.
The hack, reported by the Washington Post, took place in January and February and resulted in more than 614 gigabytes of data being stolen. The contractor that was breached was not disclosed but reportedly worked with the Naval Undersea Warfare Centre, a research and development group that works on submarines and underwater weapons.
Of particular interest in the treasure trove of stolen documents—all of which government officials said were unclassified

China Hacked a Navy Contractor and Stole 600GB of Data

This was an eye opening read, I know china regularly hacks military contractors and companies across the world without consequence. Goverment officials say that the hack was of unclassified material but is that to be believed? China recently have made some advances with hypersonics and there have been a few stories here on ATS, the aviation thread have had a couple of good threads. What's worrying is how China seems to get away with this and doesn't face any retribution for it's actions.

a reply to: Kurokage

We always hear what the thieving Chinese, Koreans and Russians are doing. I would love to see their press stories about what we've been thieving extracting from them.

It's suggestive that the panopticon of the NSA isn't quite as omniscient as it would like to be. Foreign powers have been scooping technology for decades. However, it's inconceivable that the NSA hasn't been instrumental in wholesale 'extracting' when it's embedded in allied nations as well as our political enemies and rivals.

My brother works for a company that does network security for everyone from alphabet agencies to the mom and pop store on the corner. We were talking about this at dinner last night. He was saying that all these companies want them to come in, look at their network and give them a list of steps to make everything secure. He also said that what we hear about isn't even a tiny fraction of what's going on.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
My brother works for a company that does network security for everyone from alphabet agencies to the mom and pop store on the corner. We were talking about this at dinner last night. He was saying that all these companies want them to come in, look at their network and give them a list of steps to make everything secure. He also said that what we hear about isn't even a tiny fraction of what's going on.

Thats the crux of it, isn't it?

Underreporting makes for easing the stress, I believe many things get hacked and taken, prolly on a level thats just sickening.

Cyber warfare will be the next world war trench. Imagine the implications of actions taken by a well-placed computer in our power grid, water supply, and various other industries. Just think within minutes from now satellites crash the lights go out. fuel dry's up, water no longer comes out of the tap in major cities. All from a well-placed file on the right computer. We are behind the game in training an army of hackers prepared to protect our grids.

a reply to: Arnie123

I won't repeat most of what he said, but it boils down to it being the wild west and no one was really taking it seriously until recently.

If China comes in and kicks down a door then steals a hard drive from a contractor everybody would go ballistic.
They break into a computer and steal the contents of a hard drive and nobody really cares.

Shouldn't this be an act of war?

How is this not an act of war? This should be treated as such and harsh sanctions should be put in place on any country from which these hacks originate. Just like Afghanistan was held accountable for harboring Alqueda, countries that harbor (or even allow remote access to other countries via proxies, VPN's etc) hackers should be treated similarly (sanctions instead of invasion).

a reply to: Kandinsky


You only have to look at some of the products that China market to there own people, just take a look at cars as an example...

Jalopnik website

China doesn't seem to care about patents or company rights/ownership across the world, spying has always been a tit for tat type of operation but China is about stealing anything and everything that isn't tied down lately.

There should be a NATO cyber-security council. Anyone who hacks a defense contractor within NATO should be sanctioned by all members of NATO. Those countries which do not impose sanctions will be fined relative to the trade with the sanctioned nation (If they spend $250 million with sanctioned country, find them as much) - and or their membership with NATO can be put up for review.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
My brother works for a company that does network security for everyone from alphabet agencies to the mom and pop store on the corner. We were talking about this at dinner last night. He was saying that all these companies want them to come in, look at their network and give them a list of steps to make everything secure. He also said that what we hear about isn't even a tiny fraction of what's going on.

It's getting scary how blatant China's hacking seems to be getting lately, and is playing catch up on Americas military might and insight and would rather steal it than develop it's own ideas it seems.

a reply to: Kurokage

Yes they're notorious for ducking copyrights. I wonder if they ever try to protect their own intellectual property? It'd be ironic, right?

In my previous post, I was mainly thinking of industrial and military espionage because I expect we're all at it. It'd be interesting to see if that's really the case.

There was an interesting documentary on Israeli tech firms. One of them demonstrated that we can now hack infrastructure like water treatment plants. STUXNET is another example. It's possible we're not only stealing tech from other nations, but actively stifling the progress of rivals too. No doubt these will be the battlegrounds of the future and, like social media cyberwarfare, very hard to 100% prove who the culprits will be.

originally posted by: Kandinsky
a reply to: Kurokage

We always hear what the thieving Chinese, Koreans and Russians are doing. I would love to see their press stories about what we've been thieving extracting from them.

It's suggestive that the panopticon of the NSA isn't quite as omniscient as it would like to be. Foreign powers have been scooping technology for decades. However, it's inconceivable that the NSA hasn't been instrumental in wholesale 'extracting' when it's embedded in allied nations as well as our political enemies and rivals.

Yes, it seems the US, China and Russia powers like to snoop on each other. When they get caught, I don't think it occurs to them that they shouldn't be snooping, only that they shouldn't have got caught.

a reply to: Kurokage

It's far from just China. It's everyone with a computer. China is the most blatant about it, but if they have a computer and net connection they're hacking too.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Exactly. We're so quick to portray them as villains and we do the same thing...and quite possibly more successfully too. I'm not necessarily against the practice of espionage, but totally against the propaganda and hypocrisy associated with it.

One niggle I have with espionage is it's a race that can't be won. It creates a paranoia that leads to more espionage and can have an effect on the national consciousness. Using the NSA as an example, they're spying on their own citizens as well as friendly allies. Logically, this level of surveillance can only ever increase and the paranoia element prevents the race from slowing down. It will eventually come to define society and the human experience. Bleak, huh?

a reply to: Kurokage

You don't think we do the same thing?

What sort of retribution would you like? Should we sink one of their carriers? Maybe plant a bomb in "the forbidden city?"

originally posted by: Kandinsky
Using the NSA as an example, they're spying on their own citizens as well as friendly allies. Logically, this level of surveillance can only ever increase and the paranoia element prevents the race from slowing down. It will eventually come to define society and the human experience. Bleak, huh?

The NSA isn't supposed to spy on its own citizens as a general rule, though I'm sure they do anyway. The US, UK and Germany have a simple way to get data on their own citizens, they get the others to spy on them and then exchange the data:

How the NSA Targets Germany and Europe

Britain's GCHQ intelligence agency can spy on anyone but British nationals, the NSA can conduct surveillance on anyone but Americans, and Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency can spy on anyone but Germans. That's how a matrix is created of boundless surveillance in which each partner aids in a division of roles.

The documents show that, in this situation, the services did what is not only obvious, but also anchored in German law: They exchanged information. And they worked together extensively. That applies to the British and the Americans, but also to the BND, which assists the NSA in its Internet surveillance.

So much for the laws in those countries against spying on their own citizens.

a reply to: Kandinsky


They are so notorious for ducking copyright laws, and infringement, its a joke. I never understood why they never had any real comeback or consequence, and why companies continue to have their products built there. It just seems so blatant compared to others.

We all know that intelligent services spy and counter-spy on each other, this has been going on since there inception, but China seems to going farther than any of it competitors with its espionage and hacking.

How does it taste, that own medicine?

a reply to: kelbtalfenek

What sort of retribution would you like? Should we sink one of their carriers? Maybe plant a bomb in "the forbidden city?"

I wasn't thinking of that kind of retribution!! It was more of an economic style of retribution.