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| Security Professional Discussion-hacked by Chinese
More and more lately I see stories like this popping up in the media. First of all there are easy ways to prevent things like this from happening..but more so I do not believe many of the reports..I think they come from clueless PC and laptop user..who should never have access to the Internet with that hardware..and those who are reporting such incidents..would not know the difference between a real Hack to obtain data compared to their system calling Microsoft to get any update.  Each time the "reports" come out and are investigated by real security professional it all comes to a dead end. But more to the point I think they put out these "I was hacked" for some personal or political agenda.
What say you?
Wolf says office computers hacked by Chinese sources over past 2 years
Rep. Frank Wolf and another congressman said Wednesday their office computers containing sensitive information about political dissidents were invaded by Chinese-based hackers over the past two years.
Wolf, R-Va., said he was told by House investigators and the FBI that the computers of four of his staffers were hacked into in August 2006. Wolf was told that similar hacks took place at other members’ offices and committees.
The FBI and the White House declined to comment.
He said the machines contained data on dissidents and human rights activists across the world, and that he had been asked to stay silent on the matter.
Shortly after the announcement, the House Foreign Affairs Committee disclosed one of its computers was also struck by a hacker working from China in 2006.
Wolf was joined at the press conference by Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., who said his computers for a human rights subcommittee were infected in December 2006 and March 2007 with a virus “intended to take control of the computers,” which authorities traced back to a Chinese IP address.
»www.examiner.com/a-1437292~Wolf_···ars.html
US probes whether laptop copied on China trip
AP: US probes whether laptop copied on China trip
U.S. authorities are investigating whether Chinese officials secretly copied the contents of a government laptop computer during a visit to China by Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and used the information to try to hack into Commerce computers, officials and industry experts told The Associated Press.
Surreptitious copying is believed to have occurred when a laptop was left unattended during Gutierrez's trip to Beijing for trade talks in December, people familiar with the incident told the AP. These people spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident was under investigation.
Gutierrez told the AP on Thursday he could not discuss whether or how the laptop's contents might have been copied.
"Because there is an investigation going on, I would rather not comment on that," he said. "To the extent that there is an investigation going on, those are the things being looked at, those are the questions being asked. I don't think I should provide any speculative answers."
A Commerce Department spokesman, Rich Mills, said he could not confirm or deny such an incident in China. Asked whether the department has issued new rules for carrying computers overseas, Mills said: "The department is continuing to improve our security posture, and that includes providing updates, guidances and best practices to staff to maintain security."
Fully one year after being unplugged from the Internet, some Commerce Department employees complained about the inconvenience. One worker offered to provide his own laptop so he could work at his desk, rather than use one of the office terminals 30 feet away. "How that endanger the network?" the employee wrote last summer. His request was denied by a security supervisor who complained that he, too, was struggling with the same Internet restrictions.
In the period after Gutierrez returned from China in December, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team - known as US-CERT, some of the government's leading computer forensic experts - rushed to the Commerce Department on at least three occasions to respond to serious attempts at data break-ins, officials told the AP.
"There's nothing to substantiate an actual compromise at this time," said Russ Knocke, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. Knocke said he was unable to find records of a DHS investigation. He said US-CERT workers have visited the Commerce Department eight times since December, but none of those visits related to laptops or the secretary's trip to China. He said the US-CERT organization works routinely with all U.S. agencies.
»www.examiner.com/a-1415413~AP__U···rip.html
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