_More_ congressional computers hacked, from China

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/more-congressional-computers-hacked-from-china-2008-06-21.html

More congressional computers hacked from China
By Jordy Yager
Posted: 06/21/08 03:37 PM [ET]

More Members of Congress have had their computers infiltrated by
hackers within China than initially suspected, a lawmaker has
revealed.

Reps. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), Chris Smith (R-N.J.), and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.)
admitted to having data removed from their Capitol Hill computers last
week, but Wolf says there are more.

“I’m not at liberty to say who they are, but there are other members,”
said Wolf, ranking member on the Appropriations Committee’s State and
Foreign Operations subcommittee.

Computers within the Foreign Affairs Committee, on which Smith serves
as a senior Republican, were also infiltrated. Kirk suspects that
other committees may have been attacked as well.

“I would suspect that the Foreign Affairs, Armed Services,
Intelligence, (and) Appropriations committees would all be top
targets,” Kirk said.

Wolf and Smith said they believe the hackers focused on them because
of their continued objections to China’s human rights violations, and
suspected that the hackers were looking for information on dissidents.

The computers of Wolf’s foreign policy and human rights staff, chief
of staff, legislative director, and judiciary staff were all attacked.

“They got everything,” Wolf said, at a news conference.

The vast amount of information that the attacks, which occurred over
the past two years, may have acquired from the computers has lawmakers
concerned that the hackers may be selling it to other countries.

“China has a record of selling things to certain countries,” Wolf
said.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he did not know the details
of what information had been stolen but noted that he was very
concerned.

“This is a serious matter and we’re looking into it carefully,” Hoyer
said.

Alexa, an Internet information company, tracks the usage of millions
of Alexa Toolbar users and ranks the traffic flow to millions of
websites by the user’s country.

Internet users from China are the sixth most frequent browsers of the
House’s websites, while users from Iran are the eleventh, according to
the site. Iran and China tie for tenth most popular country-of-origin
for visitors to the Senate’s websites.

But simply because foreigners are looking at government websites does
not mean they are hacking in, as proficient hackers can easily mask
their identity and their base country.

“If the Iranians are simply logging in to see what we have to say,
there’s nothing wrong with that, just like if the Chinese logged in, I
wouldn’t have any problem with that,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-
Calif.). “But having the secret police of China or Iran hack in to
find out who has given us certain information, which we depend on for
foreign policy decisions, now that’s a problem.”

James Lewis, the technology program director at the nonprofit Center
for Strategic and International Studies, said that Iran does not have
the sophisticated capabilities required to hack into government
websites.

But in seeing such a high level of interest, as demonstrated in
Alexa’s rankings, it shows that it could be in the market to purchase
such information, he said.

“It shows that there’s a lot of interest in the country as to what
Congress is up to,” he said. “There might be a correlation. People who
don’t care about Congress aren’t going to be trying to hack into it.
It’s probably safe to assume the Iranians are interested.”

The FBI asked the lawmakers not to speak publicly, fearing that if
they did, they would be unable to track the IP addresses of the
hackers, Kirk said.

“When you’re in the middle of a criminal investigation, you try not to
alert the criminal of what’s happened so you can track it down,” he
said.

Rohrabacher, a Foreign Affairs panel member, has other suspicions as
to why the hacked lawmakers were asked to remain silent.

“When a U.S. corporation or government employee tells you ‘Don’t make
any noise because it will make things worse,’ they’re implementing the
policy of accommodation,” said Rohrabacher. “But when they start to
begin to extend their oppressive tactics to our country in order to
maintain the security there, that’s when they’ve gone way too far.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he did not know how
many offices had been hacked but that the House was taking steps to
address the security lapses.

“The Committee on House Administration is working with the House
Information Resources people to implement addition safeguards,”
Boehner said.

Smith said initially he thought his computers had a glitch or a virus
of some kind but after the second time his computers crashed, he knew
something was wrong. When he told Wolf about the incidents several
months ago, Wolf confirmed it had happened to him as well and proposed
to alert their colleagues.

One of the FBI’s highest priority is protecting the United States
against cyber attacks and high-tech crimes.

“Computer systems control all critical infrastructures, and nearly all
of these systems are linked together through the Internet,” Wolf said
on the House floor. “This means that nearly all infrastructures in the
United States are vulnerable to being attacked, hijacked or destroyed
by cyber means…The potential for massive and coordinated cyber attacks
against the United States is no longer a futuristic problem.”
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