Chinese Hackers Planted ‘Trap Doors’ In Government Computers
June 22, 2008 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
By going public last week about hack attacks by China on computers in his congressional office, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) put the spotlight on a growing trend of cyber attacks on U.S. and foreign government officials.
U.S. defense officials confirmed that Chinese military hackers had broken into computers at the Pentagon used for email within the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel complained directly to Chinese President Hu Jintao about Chinese attacks on German government computers, and European and Asian governments from France and Britain to Japan and South Korea have identified widespread Chinese hacking.
U.S. intelligence officials disclosed that one objective of the Chinese hacking is to plant “trap doors” into government computer systems that would permit shutting down or disrupting the systems in war time. Some government agencies were forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars replacing compromised computers because they could n
