On September 27th, the technical team jointly formed by China National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center and 360 Company released the second investigation report on the cyber attack of China Northwestern Polytechnical University by the National Security Agency (NSA). The report disclosed in detail a series of cyber attacks and infiltration behaviors, such as the targeted access operation (TAO) under the NSA attacking, controlling the network of Northwestern Polytechnical University, infiltrating the infrastructure of China, inquiring the information of sensitive identity personnel in China and sending it back to the NSA headquarters.
For a long time, the United States has frequently hyped the so-called "China Hacking Theory", but it has continued to carry out large-scale, organized and indiscriminate cyber theft, monitoring and attack around the world, weaving a "monitoring network" covering both inside and outside the United States.
A "monitoring network" that snares the privacy of American citizens
After the "September 11th Incident" in 2001, the U.S. government, eager to take revenge on terrorist organizations, gave NSA unprecedented authority, giving it the power to monitor almost everything, including civil communications and the Internet. Since then, the NSA has secretly carried out a large number of monitoring plans and projects, unscrupulously spying on citizens’ personal privacy, and the "monitoring network" in the United States has begun to accelerate its weaving and penetrate into all aspects of citizens’ lives.
In 2013, Edward Snowden, a former outsourcing employee of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), exposed the NSA’s "Prism Project" to the media. The incident shocked the world. This is the first time that the monitoring plan of the United States has been exposed to the world on a large scale, including a large number of projects to monitor the communications and networks of American citizens.
"Prism Project" Project Process (Photo/Guardian)
According to Snowden’s disclosure, in 2013, the "black budget" of American spy agencies was nearly $53 billion. With the financial support, NSA wantonly violated the privacy rights of American citizens, at least hundreds of times a year.
The US government secretly instructed the telecommunications company Verizon to hand over all the daily call data of users to NSA. At the same time, NSA also directly invaded the servers of nine Internet companies, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and tracked and collected online communication data of users.
Terrible is that "Project Prism" is just the tip of the iceberg, and there are countless monitoring plans and projects such as "Stellar Wind" and "Irritant Horn", which together form an invisible net, including every move of American citizens.
America’s "monitoring network" covers the whole world
In addition to sparing no effort to monitor and monitor its own citizens, the United States has also engaged in cyber attacks, eavesdropping and stealing secrets around the world, turning a blind eye to international law and the basic norms of international relations.
The NSA code-named "Stateroom" project installed monitoring equipment in nearly 100 embassies and consulates around the world, and also monitored the phone calls of 35 world leaders including the UN Secretary-General, the German Chancellor and the Japanese Prime Minister, which made the then German Chancellor Merkel, who always regarded the United States as an ally, furious.
In addition, in 2009, the United States created the "MYSTIC" to collect telephone metadata of Bahamas, Mexico, Kenya, Philippines and other countries under the guise of providing legitimate business services to foreign governments.
At the same time, monitoring submarine optical cables, selling "encryption devices" and stealing secrets through cyber attacks are also the usual means of American espionage. For example, the United States monitored submarine optical cables through the Upstream program, and collected 13.25 million Internet communications in the first half of 2011 alone. The CIA also secretly manipulated the Swiss "Clepto AG" encryption equipment company to obtain encrypted communication information in more than 120 countries.
Although surveillance projects have been exposed so frequently, the United States has never restrained its global surveillance behavior. In 2020, both the Irish Data Protection Committee and the French National Committee for Information and Freedom publicly accused American Internet companies of leaking user data; In 2021, Danish media also exposed that NSA used Internet facilities in Denmark to monitor senior officials and entrepreneurs in European countries.
A huge arsenal of cyber attacks
In August this year, lawyers and journalists around Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, accused the CIA of illegally collecting information on their electronic devices and recording their correspondence with Assange, infringing on privacy. Since Wikileaks exposed the CIA’s related plans on a large scale in 2017, the United States has been targeting various charges against Assange Luo Zhi. Why is the CIA targeting Assange so much? Are you afraid that Wikileaks will expose their crimes again?
In 2017, Wikileaks exposed the information of the CIA’s cyber attack arsenal codenamed "Vault 7" (vault 7), and disclosed and interpreted 19 batches of cyber attack weapons, totaling more than 8,700 sensitive documents.
Part of "Vault 7" revealed by Wikileaks
According to the data, a large number of CIA cyber weapons can be used to attack almost any platform, from Windows and Linux systems to Android, Apple MacOS and iOS devices, and even Samsung Smart TV, so as to carry out data theft and continuous monitoring and monitoring.
"Vault 7" shows the overall capability of CIA cyber attacks and the richness of CIA cyber armory, which makes countries around the world have a clearer understanding of the hacking strength of the United States.
This year, China National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center and other information security agencies, through long-term follow-up analysis and evidence collection from several injured units, confirmed that the NSA has been carrying out extremely covert cyber attacks on China for a long time, and successively discovered several major cyber attack weapons in the United States-"Operation telescreen" (Bvp47), QUANTUM attack system and "Hive".
Application Scenario of American Quantum Attack System Project (Figure /EFF)
The U.S. Department of Defense’s FY 2022 Budget increased the Department of Defense’s network-related budget to $10.4 billion, including $4.3 billion in cyber warfare to support activities such as network intelligence gathering, defensive cyberspace action (DCEO) and offensive cyberspace action (OCEO).
In fact, the United States is abusing its leading edge in Internet and communication technology, eavesdropping and stealing secrets with the help of technological hegemony, trying to weave an impenetrable "monitoring network" around the world, which is a veritable "matrix empire, eavesdropping empire and stealing empire".
GDToday, Southern Newspaper Media Group, School of Journalism and Communication, Jinan University
Produced by "True Detective" column group
Reporter: Sun Yongle (internship), Chen Mingyi (internship) and Liu Xiaodi.
Editor: Yuan Zixiang