China hacks Gmail accounts of senior U.S. officials one day after Obama’s cyber warning

• Google said U.S. government officials targeted
• Security breach larger than previous Gmail attacks
• Pentagon warn U.S. may retaliate with military force
• Hackers also target military contractor that supplies unmanned aerial vehicles
• Beijing denies being behind attack

Fears China is plotting a devastating ‘cyber war’ against the West were heightened yesterday when it emerged Chinese hackers have stolen hundreds of passwords belonging to senior U.S. government officials.

The security breach was revealed by Google which said victims had been carefully targeted in a scam traced to the city of Jinan in the Communist state’ s Shangdong province.

Experts suspect Chinese hackers are capable of reducing the U.S. or its allies including Britain to stone-age conditions at the press of a button – by crippling the computers running everything from banks and supermarkets to power stations and water plants.

 

Hacked: Google admitted that hundreds of Gmail accounts had been targeted by hackers in China, including those of senior U.S. officials.

In a chilling echo of the Cold War, a ‘cyber arms race’ is rapidly developing between East and West, with the U.S. even threatening to retaliate with military weapons to any ‘act of war’ attack on its computers from a foreign power.

Earlier this week the US said it would react militarily to future cyber incursions from other countries.

One U.S. military official quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying: ‘If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks.’

British defence minister Nick Harvey underlined the growing sense of panic by declaring that ‘action in cyberspace will form part of the future battlefield’.

Row: Google said the phishing scam had originated in China.

Sir Michael Rake, chairman of BT Group and a figurehead for cyber security issues in industry, warned world powers were being drawn into a hi-tech arms race in which countries could wage war without firing a single shot.

Sir Michael said: ‘I don’t think personally it’s an exaggeration to say you can bring a state to its knees without any military action whatsoever.’

Although there is no direct evidence that the Chinese hackers in the latest case are in the pay of the Chinese government, their attacks were so sophisticated and highly-targeted that few experts doubt they were state-sponsored.

Apart from anything else, unlike other internet scams, there was no obvious financial gain behind them, suggesting a sinister rather than a financial motive.

Senior U.S. and South Korean government officials who fell victim to the scam were tricked into giving away their Google and Yahoo email login details.

Threat: The Pentagon said it is ready to retaliate against cyber attacks.

Defence: The Pentagon will reclassify cyber attacks as an aggressive act if it causes the equivalent loss of life or damage to infrastructure as a conventional military attack.

They had received ‘Trojan horse’ emails that purported to be from someone they knew, but were in fact carefully-crafted fakes.

One example email had the title: ‘Fw: Draft US-China Joint Statement’, and contained the text: ‘This is the latest version of State’s joint statement.’

Enticed into opening the email, the unsuspecting user was directed to a convincing but bogus Google or Yahoo email page where they were invited to type in their login and password. When they did so, their supposedly-secret details immediately fell into the hands of the Chinese hackers.

Armed with the passwords, the hackers could access the user’s real email account and spy on genuine emails being sent between government officials.

Although the scam – which went on for months before being uncovered – targeted personal email accounts, rather than government accounts, officials could have forwarded their work emails to their personal Gmail accounts.

Sensitive: The Lockheed Joint Strike Fighter, just one of many weapons manufactured by the company and used by both the U.S. and the UK armed forces.

A Google spokesman said yesterday: ‘Google detected and has disrupted this campaign to take users’ passwords and monitor their emails. We have notified victims and secured their accounts.’

The White House said it was investigating. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the allegations were ‘very serious’ and would be investigated by the FBI.

Beijing has repeatedly denied hacking into foreign countries’ systems.

Britian has found itself under attack also.

Last month, Chancellor George Osborne revealed that foreign intelligence agencies were trying to break into the Treasury computer system to steal information or spread viruses at the rate of more than one attack a day.

MI5 and the FBI have warned British and American companies of the mushrooming threat from Chinese government-backed hackers trying to pilfer commercial secrets.

Whitehall has announced an extra £500million to be spent on bolstering cyber security, amid concerns that Britain’s computer networks linking banking, power and water systems are too vulnerable to digital sabotage.

But America is not always the victim in cyber attacks. The U.S. and Israel were blamed for the development of the Stuxnet virus, a computer worm that targets industrial software and was credited with sabotage attacks on Iran’s nuclear programme.

Delegates at an international cyber security conference held in London this week warned the crisis was so severe that nations should agree an international ‘non-proliferation’ treaty similar to the one drawn up to slow the spread of nuclear weapons.

 

Via DailyMail

Between us, we’re worth $1 trillion: The world’s richest dinner party

Who would you invite to your fantasy dinner party?

It’s difficult to imagine a wealthier set of guests than those invited to the home of Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr earlier this year, in the mega-wealthy enclave of Woodside, California. Together they represent companies worth nearly $1 trillion.

By all accounts, Obama didn’t have an easy ride – many of the diners are generous political donors and the President was criticised for slow progress on policy promises. The dinner lasted two hours, and is expected to be the first in a series that Obama holds with Silicon Valley’s leaders.

So what was on the menu? Chef Yigit Pura would only reveal that Obama said, ‘Banana cream pie was solid,’ as he kissed his fingers.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening was Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to ditch his hoodie for more formal attire – normally, the only suits he’s acquainted with are of the legal variety…

ERIC SCHMIDT

Title Chairman, Google

Worth $7 billion

Google market valuation $171.8 billion

In his ten-year tenure, Schmidt oversaw Google’s transformation into the global internet giant that it is today. He stepped down as CEO last month and is now a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

ARTHUR D LEVINSON 

Title Chairman, Genentech

Worth Earned $850,000 in 2010

Genentech market valuation $46.8bn

Founded in 1976, Genentech (now owned by Roche) pioneered using human genetic information to develop medicines, including cancer treatments. Levinson stepped down as CEO in 2009, and now sits on Apple’s board of directors.

JOHN T CHAMBERS 

Title CEO, Cisco Systems

Worth $1 billion

Cisco market valuation $96 billion Chambers raises his glass extra-high to Obama, showing that there are no hard feelings on the part of this co-chair of John McCain’s 2008 presidential bid. He earns his seat as chairman of Cisco, the dotcom boom’s most valuable company.

JOHN DOERR

Title Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Worth $2.2 billion

The host for the evening, Doerr is a tech investor with a knack for backing a winning idea. Back in 1999, KPCB led a $25 million investment in upstart Google. KPCB has participated in over $2.3 billion of investments since May 2010.

LARRY ELLISON 

Title CEO, Oracle

Worth $39.5 billion

Oracle market valuation $177.6 billion

Currently the fifth wealthiest human being on the planet, Ellison co-founded Oracle in 1977. In true billionaire fashion, he splashed out over $100 million to ensure that his BMW Oracle sailing team won the America’s Cup last year.

REED HASTINGS

Title Co-founder and CEO, Netflix

Worth Earned $5.5 million in 2010

Netflix market valuation $12 billion

In 1997 Hastings co-founded Netflix, an online subscription service for movies and TV which now has over 20 million members across North America. He once taught maths in Swaziland during a two-year stint in the US Peace Corps.

JOHN L HENNESSY

Title President, Stanford University

Worth $31.4 million

Stanford endowment $15.9 billion

Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Stanford has a long association with the area’s tech companies, many of whose founders  –  including those of Google, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard and Yahoo!  –  passed through the university.

CAROL BARTZ 

Title CEO, Yahoo!

Worth Earned $47.2 million in 2009

Yahoo! market valuation $23.7 billion

Bartz, who joined Yahoo! in 2009, holds the honour of having topped a 2010 list of executives paid too much for running underperforming companies. Although Yahoo! remains a global internet brand, it’s still considered to be in decline.

DICK COSTOLO 

Title CEO, Twitter

Worth $120 million

Twitter market valuation $3.7 billion

A computer science graduate and former improvisational comedian, Costolo sold FeedBurner  –  a provider of management tools for website owners  –  to Google in 2007 for a rumoured $100 million. Last year he took over as CEO of Twitter.

MARK ZUCKERBERG 

Title CEO, Facebook

Worth $13.5 billion

Facebook market valuation $50 billion

The Social Network’s complex antihero, Zuckerberg is ‘trying to make the world a more open place by helping people connect and share’, according to his own Facebook profile. Luckily for him, he’s becoming filthy rich in the process.

STEVE WESTLY

Title Managing partner and founder, The Westly Group

Worth $500 million

A Democratic Party supporter, venture capitalist Westly served as a California co-chair for Obama’s 2008 presidential election campaign. The Westly Group has participated in over $178 million of investments since April 2010.

BARACK OBAMA 

Title President, USA

Worth $10.5 million

USA $14.7 trillion (GDP)

Obama is noted for his love of technology: he embraced social media in his election campaign, and was reportedly gifted an iPad 2 a month before they went on sale. His aide Valerie Jarrett also attended the dinner (seated to Zuckerberg’s right).

ANN DOERR 

Title Philanthropist

The hostess, as the wife of John Doerr, is no stranger to technology herself, holding bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering. An environmental activist and trustee of the New York-based Environmental Defense Fund, she works alongside her husband in his philanthropic endeavours.

STEVE JOBS 

Title Co-founder and CEO, Apple

Worth $8.3 billion

Apple market valuation $323.3 billion

Jobs has transformed the tech industry several times. After his pioneering early years at Apple, he left the firm to set up NeXT (which created the machine on which the Web was developed), before returning to spearhead the ‘iRevolution’.

Via DailyMail