Chinese Cyber Attacks Hit Australian Mining Companies

Mining companies BHP Billiton, Fortescue Metals and Rio Tinto have suffered cyber attacks from China, according to Four Corners program of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). eSecurity Planet reported this on April 21, 2010.

Robert McClelland, the federal Attorney-General, on April 21, 2010 warned that several Australian companies as well as government departments will be targeted by increasing and more intricate cyber attacks in coming times, as per the news published by brisbanetimes.com.au on April 22, 2010.

According to Marian Wilkinson, the host of ABC1's Corners program, scammers have really worked to break into the companies' machines to steal their secret information, as per the news published by ZDnet on April 20, 2010.

A senior government source and former company employees confirmed the attack on Rio Tinto to Four Corners. They claimed that the attacks were so severe that the company took its Singapore office offline for nearly three days instantly following the arrest of Stern Hu, as the network security of the company was being upgraded.

In addition, an ex-BHP senior executive also told Four Corners of the several attacks during BHP's Rio Tinto takeover bid. Hackers here tried to breakthrough Rio Tinto's computer network, as per the news published by ZDnet on April 20, 2010.

In the meantime, Fortescue Metals Group's senior mining executives have noted that company's machines in Perth and Pilbara had also been hit by the cyber attack.

Moreover, according to the experts, China has been a source of major cyber attacks earlier also, so it's nothing new. The recent case is the attack on the Indian Government. In that case, cyber criminals knocked off 'restricted', 'secret', and 'confidential' information from the country's defense ministry, its political missions overseas, the National Security Council Secretariat and several other entities, which hold sensitive information that could be wrongly used by an enemy for intelligence purposes.

Although Chinese government has responded heatedly to the claims that it is involved in an increasing wave of cyber attacks made on Western interests, the technology experts have identified that the latest attacks on Google and other companies of the US emanated from a Shanghai-based university and other Chinese training site.

Related article: Chinese Hackers Threatening Korean Game Sites

» SPAMfighter News - 5/3/2010