China hacker spills the beans on online break-ins

HIT ONLINE: Official sources confirmed these attempts but say classified information has not been compromised.

Other stories in the section:

IITs have lot to offer to humanities students too

Now the IITs have more to offer than just engineering.

• G-8 curtain-raiser: Climate change tops agenda

Featured Blog

Abhishek Patni

MAULANA MULAYAM AND PERILS OF NUCLEAR DEAL

Featured Slideshows

New Delhi/ Zhoushan: Chinese hackers targeted the Indian embassy computers in Beijing on Thursday.

Official sources confirmed these attempts but say classified information has not been compromised.

They say computers storing sensitive data are standalone systems not linked to the Internet. CERT-IN, the official watchdog that tracks hacking of government networks, has refused to comment on the matter.

Yet, one man wasn't so coy.

“No website is 100 per cent safe. There are websites with high level of security but there is always some weakness,” China’s cyber hacker Xiao Chen.

Chen and his friends run a hacking website from China. It claims 10,000 registered users and 50,000 hits a day, thanks to the useful advice and free software it offers for breaking into computer systems.

Chen boasts two of his colleagues have hacked into the Pentagon. CNN has no way of verifying that.

“They wouldn't publicise it they wouldn't make it public. It's very sensitive,” says Chen.

The Pentagon says last year computer networks in the US, Germany, Britain and France, were hit by what they call multiple intrusions.

Many were from China. But China denies that and has challenged the US to prove it.

Says Qin Gang of Chinese Foreign Ministry, “If they have any evidence, I hope they would provide it, then we can cooperate on this issue.”

“These hacker groups in my opinion are not agents of the Chinese state. They are sort of useful idiots for the Beijing regime. But clearly they represent the elite skills that are necessary to conduct these kinds of attacks,” says cyber security expert, James Mulvenon.

Experts say tracing back a hacker's location accurately is difficult. And even if they do, they'd only land small fry like young Xiao Chen.

The safer alternative is to constantly upgrade security procedures, protocols and firewalls.

(With inputs from John Vause)