TORONTO, Can. – Cyber criminals believed to be based in China have enjoyed nearly unfettered access to Nortel’s computer system and access to its most secret intellectual property since as far back as 2000, according to the results of an internal investigation obtained by the Wall Street Journal.
Nortel, once Canada?s most valuable company with nearly 100,000 employees and a market value exceeding $250-billion, filed for bankruptcy protection around the world in 2009. If hackers gained access to some or all of that intellectual property over the years, its future value could be called into question.
In the years leading up to the telephone equipment maker?s downfall, hackers downloaded technical papers, research-and-development reports, business plans, employee emails and other documents, the report said. Passwords stolen from a former chief executive and other high-ranking Nortel staff allowed the criminals to roam the network undetected.
The hackers ?had access to everything,? said Brian Shields, the Nortel employee who worked at the now defunct company for nearly two decades and led the investigation.
?They had plenty of time. All they had to do was figure out what they wanted.?
Nortel ?did nothing from a security standpoint? to try and keep the hackers out, his report said, aside from resetting the passwords. In June 2009, Mr. Shields sent a report to then CEO Mike Zafirovski detailing the history of the attacks, which by then had been ongoing for years.
?The Chinese are still in your network, we never really rid them out,? Shields wrote.
?I personally would not trust anything you do on your computer as it is extremely likely it is being monitored.?
Zafirovski attempted to discredit Shields? allegations, telling the WSJ he was known as someone who would ?cry wolf.?
Major corporations around the world have only recently begun to recognize the need to go public about breaches of their computer systems. In Canada and elsewhere, watchdogs have openly called for such disclosures to be made a legal requirement under threat of financial penalty.
The revelations come just one day after the U.S. Department of Justice approved the US$4.5-billion sale of Nortel?s massive patent portfolio. The company was once a leader in research and development of advanced wireless technologies now considered essential to players in the cutthroat mobile market.
Last July, a six-company consortium led by Apple Inc. and including Microsoft Corp. and Canada?s Research In Motion Ltd. paid more than five times what Google Inc. initially offered in a ?stalking horse? bid. The final price fully tripled analysts? loftiest expectations for the 4,500-strong portfolio.
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