China accidently leaks Cyber Warfare software, US IP addresses being exploited

[nsane.forums]

China has accidentally shown off on video some of its cyber warfare software. The video shows how China is attacking sources using US based IP addresses.

It has been widely believed that China has been behind many cyber attacks in the past but there was little evidence to support those claims. While the country has always refuted these remarks, an accidental leak reveals that they are engaging in cyber warfare and routing it through US IP addresses.

The information comes from thepochtimes.com and shows a screen cap from a video that clearly shows the software. The writing at the top of the box states "Select Attack Target" and the scroll windows allows the individual to select an IP address to attack from. The Chinese are using US based IP address to commit cyber warfare.

The software was built by the Electrical Engineering University of China's People's Liberation Army. In the video, the user selects the IP 138.26.72.17 which happens to belong to the University of Alabama in Birmingham. The source states:

The screenshots appear as B-roll footage in the documentary for six seconds—between 11:04 and 11:10 minutes—showing custom-built Chinese software apparently launching a cyber-attack against the main website of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, by using a compromised IP address belonging to a United States university.

This information surfaced in what was supposed to be a standard propaganda based military video that praised the Chinese and bashed the US.

It has been widely believed for some time that the Chinese were working on cyber warfare software, but this is the first direct evidence that they are using it against the United States. China has not commented on this leak.

View: Original Article

[Alpha1BA]

accidently leaked :rofl: it's all b*llox for now although it is happening! I predict atleast another 50yrs!!!

[tysroby]

Chinese Government Launching Online Attacks

Busted with the smoking gun in their hands!

A standard, even boring, piece of Chinese military propaganda screened in mid-July included what must have been an unintended but nevertheless damaging revelation: shots from a computer screen showing a Chinese military university is engaged in cyberwarfare against entities in the United States.

The documentary itself was otherwise meant as praise to the wisdom and judgment of Chinese military strategists, and a typical condemnation of the United States as an implacable aggressor in the cyber-realm. But the fleeting shots of an apparent China-based cyber-attack somehow made their way into the final cut.

The screenshots appear as B-roll footage in the documentary for six seconds—between 11:04 and 11:10 minutes—showing custom-built Chinese software apparently launching a cyber-attack against the main website of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, by using a compromised IP address belonging to a United States university. As of Aug. 22 at 1:30pm EDT, in addition to Youtube, the whole documentary is available on the CCTV website. But by Aug. 25, multiple media noted that the video had been removed.

The screenshots show the name of the software and the Chinese university that built it, the Electrical Engineering University of China's People's Liberation Army—direct evidence that the PLA is involved in coding cyber-attack software directed against a Chinese dissident group.

The software window says "Choose Attack Target." The computer operator selects an IP address from a list—it happens to be 138.26.72.17—and then selects a target. Encoded in the software are the words "Falun Gong website list," showing that attacking Falun Gong websites was built into the software.

A drop-down list of dozens of Falun Gong websites appears. The computer operator chooses Minghui.org, the main website of the Falun Gong spiritual practice.

The IP address 138.26.72.17 belongs to the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB), according to an online trace.

The shots then show a big "Attack" button on the bottom left being pushed, before the camera cuts away.

"The CCP has leaked its top secret here," says Jason Ma, a commentator for New Tang Dynasty Television. "This is the first time we see clearly that one of the top Chinese military universities is doing this research and developing software for cyber-attacks. There's solid proof of it in this video," he said.

The Chinese Communist Party has consistently denied that it is involved in cyber-attacks, but experts have long suspected that the Chinese military engages in them.

"Now we've got proof," Ma says. "They're also extending their persecution of Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa, a religious organization that is banned in China) overseas, attacking a civil website in the U.S. These are the clear messages revealed in these six seconds of video."

Network administrators at UAB contacted on Friday took a look at the IP address on their network and said it had not been used since 2010.

One of the technicians also recalled that there had been a Falun Gong practitioner at the university some years ago who held informal Falun Gong meetings on campus. They could not confirm whether that individual used that IP address.

A UAB network administrator assured The Epoch Times that they have safeguards against both network intrusions, and that their network is not compromised.

After the short interlude, the documentary continued with the themes it had started with for another nine minutes.

Last month McAfee, a network security company, said that an unprecedented campaign of cyber-espionage—affecting over 70 organizations or governments around the world and implicating billions of dollars in intellectual property—was being carried out by a "state actor."

Later evidence traced IP addresses involved in the attack to China, and a growing mountain of other circumstantial evidence also suggests that the attacks originated from China.

The military documentary on July 17, on the other hand, was meant to show that the United States is the real aggressor in cyberspace, and that China is highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. "America is the first country to propose the concept of a cyberwar, and the first country to implement it in a real war," the narrator said at one point.

It might have worked, except for those screenshots.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham made a statement after the news broke, noting that the IP address belonged to a website that was decommissioned in 2001 because it had been created against UAB rules. They said that they believe the purpose of the action demonstrated in the video was not to launch an attack from that website, but to block access to it, and that they're not aware of any such attack, past or present.

Here's the critical snippet from the program:

Rough translations of the texts shown in the dialog:

People's Liberation Army Information Engineering University

Select Attack Destinations

Target IP

List of Falung Gong sites

Falun Dafa in North America

Falun Dafa website

Meng Hui website

Witnesses of Falun Gong website 1

Witnesses of Falun Gong website 2

ATTACK CANCEL

The software is credited to have been written in the Information Engineering University of China's People's Liberation Army.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times - a newspaper from New York, published in Chinese and English, critical of the Chinese government.

Shorter Article at: F-Secure.com

[DKT27]

Staff Note: Threads merged.