Foreign hackers attack Canadian government

[alp227]

Source: CBC News

An unprecedented cyberattack on the Canadian government from China has given foreign hackers access to highly classified federal information, and forced at least two key departments off the internet, CBC News has learned.

The attack, first detected in early January, left Canadian counter-espionage agents scrambling to determine how much sensitive government information may have been stolen and by whom.

Highly placed sources tell CBC News the cyberattacks were traced back to computer servers in China.

But they caution there is no way of knowing whether the hackers are Chinese, or some other nationality routing their cybercrimes through China to cover their tracks.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2011/02/16/pol-weston-hacking.html

[applegrove]

1. Who on earth would want to attack us in Canada?

[egressingsparrowdrop]

2. There's a long list

Canada has secrets, and resources/interests, like any other country.

The whole Arctic sovereignty issue, for example, is something the US, China, Russia, etc. would like an inside look at.

[sofa king]

3. Anyone who wants to snag info about the U.S.A., for example.

It's an age old trick: if you can't get the goods from your target, you go after the information the target is sharing with its allies. Just like a dog probing a fence, sooner or later the dog is going to find a weak spot and stick its nose into it.

That goes doubly so for the U.S. and Canada, since the two nations do each other the favor of spying on the citizens their own nations are prevented by law from domestically spying on, and then trading their "analyses" with each other. That's a great way to find out if your moles have been compromised, for example, and if so, how.