BIRMINGHAM – We have had eleven days to absorb the implications of wide spread Chinese supported attacks against Google and thirty or so other organizations. The US Secretary of State made one of the most affirmative statements on Internet freedom yet articulated by a government. Various policy analysts have chimed in as well. Some thoughts on what they have said.

George Kurtz, CTO of McAfee, and his team were involved in the analysis of just what happened during these attacks which he dubs ?Aurora?. He revealed in his blog on January 14th that the primary mechanism was a Trojan horse that exploited a new vulnerability in Internet Explorer. What is interesting to note is Kurtz?s surprise at the dramatic turn the threatscape has taken.

?All I can say is wow. The world has changed. Everyone?s threat model now needs to be adapted to the new reality of these advanced persistent threats. In addition to worrying about Eastern European cybercriminals trying to siphon off credit card databases, you have to focus on protecting all of your core intellectual property, private nonfinancial customer information and anything else of intangible value. ?

There have been many instances of Chinese hacking of US research and defense organizations. To date the US State Department has remained aloof. Hiliary Clinton?s Remarks on Internet Freedom are worth noting because they are the first time a US Secretary of State has so explicitly endorsed Internet freedom and access to information.

“The same networks that help organize movements for freedom also enable al-Qaida to spew hatred and incite violence against the innocent. And technologies with the potential to open up access to government and promote transparency can also be hijacked by governments to crush dissent and deny human rights.

In the last year, we?ve seen a spike in threats to the free flow of information. China, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan have stepped up their censorship of the internet. In Vietnam, access to popular social networking sites has suddenly disappeared. And last Friday in Egypt, 30 bloggers and activists were detained.”

The most important thing Ms Clinton said in my opinion:

“On their own, new technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress, but the United States does. We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. And we recognize that the world?s information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it.”

To read the rest of this column, click on ThreatChaos.Com

Richard Stiennon is a security industry analyst based in Birmingham, MI. He has presented on the topics of cyber threats and cyber defense in 28 countries on six continents. He writes the ThreatChaos blog. His first book, Surviving Cyber War, is due to be published by Government Institutes in mid 2010. Stiennon?s publishing group, IT-Harvest, is a joint venture partner of MITechNews.Com. For joint advertising information, email email [email protected]

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