Enemies in the Blanket

I was quite surprised to read this today from Sky.com. The news is as follows:-

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Cyber Spies Hack Govt PCs Around The World

A cyber spy network based mainly in China has hacked into classified documents from government offices around the world, a research group has said.

It claims 1,295 computers have been compromised in 103 countries.

The investigations began when the Tibetan community in exile called in the Information Warfare Monitor, fearing they had fallen victim to cyber espionage.

The 10-month study eventually revealed a much wider network of compromised machines but did not pinpoint the identity or reasons behind it.

However, it did ascertain that once hackers infiltrated systems they gained control of the computers using malicious software, or malware.

This allowed cyber spies to send and receive information from the ministries of foreign affairs of Iran, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Barbados and Bhutan.

They also discovered hacked systems in the embassies of India, South Korea, Indonesia, Romania, Cyprus, Malta, Thailand, Taiwan, Portugal, Germany and Pakistan.

Two Cambridge University researchers who assisted the investigation said malware attacks can collect "actionable intelligence for use by the police and security services of a repressive state, with potentially fatal consequences for those exposed."

Stopping such attacks is difficult because defences in government agencies involve expensive and tedious operational security procedures, the researchers added.

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My worry is that, it won't just be our MOFAT people but we now have to make sure that our systems are also not compromised.