Wednesday 20 October 2010

History - 2008 - China has been accused of sponsoring cyber-terrorism

At the International Crime Science Conference in London in 2008 it was stated that the Chinese government was behind the 'Titan Rain' attacks on the US and the UK.

The attacks were identified as coming from servers in China, but the Chinese government has never officially been accused of being behind the assault.

"Up to last year (2007) people did not take it very seriously, and then there were state-sponsored Chinese groups and all sorts of groups attacking the UK and the US and getting into the infrastructure. That happened again earlier this year (2008)."  It was also stressed that, there was a problem with what could be state sponsored electronic terrorism - no matter how much collaboration you have internationally, if you have a state-sponsored terrorist coming out of China or Russia you are not going to get them.

Titan Rain is the name given by the US government to a coordinated series of attacks on US computer systems. Hackers gained access to many US computer networks, including those at Lockheed Martin and Nasa.