Canadian researchers have uncovered a vast “Shadow Network” of online espionage based in China that used seemingly harmless means such as e-mail and Twitter to extract highly sensitive data from computers around the world. Stolen documents recovered in a year-long investigation show the hackers have breached the servers of dozens of countries and organizations, taking everything from top-secret files on missile systems in India to confidential visa applications, including those of Canadians travelling abroad. The findings, which are part of a report that will be made public today in Toronto, will expose one of the biggest online spy rings ever cracked. Written by researchers at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies, the Ottawa-based security firm SecDev Group and a U.S. cyber sleuthing organization known as the Shadowserver Foundation, the report is expected to be controversial. The researchers have found a global network of “botnets,” computers controlled remotely and made to report to servers in China. Along with those servers, the investigators located where the hackers stashed their stolen files, allowing a glimpse into what the spy ring is looking for. “Essentially we went behind the backs of the attackers and picked their pockets,” said Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, which investigated the spy ring. Read more: The globe and mail
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