China Google Spiritual Ending

By Mehul Srivastava and James Rupert

April 6 (Bloomberg) -- Hackers traced back to China infiltrated computers including those of India’s government, the offices of the Dalai Lama and the United Nations, underscoring the growing threat of cyber attacks, two researchers said.

Documents relating to Indian military missile programs, security assessments of states bordering China, and files from Indian embassies worldwide were compromised, according to a report by Information Warfare Monitor, a research group associated with the University of Toronto. The Shadowserver Foundation, a volunteer watchdog group, co-authored the report.

The research comes two weeks after Google Inc. retreated from China, partly because of cyber attacks, and coincides with Indian Foreign Minister S. M. Krishna’s four-day visit to the mainland to discuss trade and improve relations between two neighbors that vie for global energy resources and disagree over border territories. The Indian government said it’s taking the report seriously and investigating the matter.

“There is a lot of concern in India’s government over the Chinese capability for counter-espionage,” said Bahukutumbi Raman, an analyst with the Center for China Studies in the southern Indian city of Chennai. The report will strengthen the case to slow India’s opening of its borders to Chinese technology companies, he said.

While the hackers can be traced back to servers in Chengdu, western China, their identity and motives are unknown, according to the researchers, who said the report was the result of an eight-month investigation.

‘Serious Issue’

“This is a serious issue, and we are looking into it,” said Sitansu Kar, a spokesman at India’s Ministry of Defense.

China’s government doesn’t condone Internet attacks, said Jiang Yu, a spokeswoman at China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“Hacking is an international problem. The international community should strengthen cooperation and face the problem together,” Jiang said today at a briefing in Beijing.

The researchers found the majority of documents hacked involved the Indian government and armed forces, including those of military training schools and a member of the Indian Directorate of Military Intelligence, according to the report. Two “secret” files were among the 14 accessed from the National Security Council Secretariat, which aids the Indian government in strategic defense planning, according to the 58- page report.

Dalai Lama’s E-mails

China and India, which fought a war in 1962, are trying to boost trade and economic relations to end years of mistrust. India’s trade deficit with China widened more than 40 percent to $15.8 billion in 2009. China exports heavy machinery, telecommunications equipment and home appliances to India.

The researchers said they traveled to India for three months to investigate e-mails accessed from the offices of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who runs a government- in-exile in India. Computers infiltrated included that of Serta Tsultrim, a Tibetan Member of Parliament and the editor of a weekly Tibetan language newspaper. Another 1,500 e-mails, containing travel details of the Dalai Lama were also accessed by the hackers, the report said.

The Dalai Lama’s office cooperated with the researchers from the University of Toronto, said Tenzin Takhla, the Tibetan spiritual leader’s secretary.

“From what we are seeing, the people attacking our computers have a very systematic approach to reading our private communications,” Takhla said. “What the experts have told us is that these are coming out of China, and that makes sense.”

India Focus

Businesses were also targeted, according to the report. Documents describing travel plans, business decisions and the financial status of three Indian companies were accessed, according to the report.

Google in March began redirecting search results from the mainland to Hong Kong, two months after the U.S. company said its servers were attacked by hackers traced to mainland China who targeted human-rights activists.

Netwitness Corp., a Herndon, Virginia-based Internet security firm, said in February it detected hackers broke security barriers on computers at more than 2,400 firms in almost 200 countries over an 18-month period.

“Several high profile cases and events, including the attacks on Google and other American companies in December 2009, underscore the growing threat environment and suggest that these attacks are becoming the norm rather than an exception,” the researchers wrote in the report.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mehul Srivastava in New Delhi at msrivastava6@bloomberg.net.