Cyber-terrorists target groups critical of China

The allegation fits a near decade-old pattern of cyber-espionage and
cyber-intimidation by the Chinese government against critics of its
human rights practices, experts said. It comes as calls for a boycott
of the 2008 Beijing Olympics have been mounting since China's crackdown
on Tibetan protesters last week.

Alison Reynolds, director of the Tibet Support Network, said organizations affiliated with her group are receiving on average 20 e-mail virus attacks daily. Increasingly, she said, the contents of the messages suggest that someone on one or more of the member groups' mailing lists has an e-mail account or computer that has already been compromised.

On March 18, as protests in Tibet intensified, a technology specialist working with Reynolds's group sent a message to members warning them to expect a sharp increase in e-mail and other cyber attacks against groups rallying the international community against China's crackdown. Less than 24 hours later, Reynolds said, someone sent the exact same message out to the list, urging recipients to review an attached Microsoft Word document for online safety instructions (file-named "cyberattack.doc"). The attachment included a Trojan horse program that opened a "backdoor" on any computer used to open the file, giving the senders remote access over the system.

"If successful, these attacks can impact the safety of the people we work with, but the other part of this is it seems they're trying to make it more difficult for us to function effectively, to disrupt our activities," Reynolds said.

Sharon Hom, executive director of the New York-based Human Rights in China, said the group's 25 member organizations worldwide have reported a marked upswing in the number and sophistication of e-mail virus attacks. In 2006, the group intercepted just two targeted e-mail attacks, and by the end of last year that number had grown to 40. In the first three months of 2008, the group's members have received more than 100 such targeted attacks.

Experts say attributing such attacks to any one group or government is extremely difficult, as computer systems that appear to be the source of malicious activity online often are controlled by persons or groups using computers in completely different locations. But Reynolds said these types of sustained, targeted attacks suggest a level of organization, tenacity and degree of commitment not typically seen in attacks by individual hackers.

The accounts of 10 members were hacked into between early February and last week, and the intruders also gained access to the group's Web server and viewed pages from the inside, the group said yesterday.

The intruders, said coalition spokesman M. Allyn Brooks-LaSure, "seemed intent on subversively monitoring, probing and disrupting coalition activities." He said Web site logs and e-mails showed Internet protocol addresses that were traced to China.

The coalition, headquartered in Washington, has been a vocal critic of China's support for the Sudanese government and its refusal to allow anyone to pressure Khartoum to end the conflict. The group has urged China -- Sudan's chief diplomatic sponsor, major weapons provider and largest foreign investor and trade partner -- to use its position as a member of the U.N. Security Council to bring peace to the region.

"Someone in Beijing is clearly trying to send us a message," coalition President Jerry Fowler said. "But they're mistaken if they think these attacks will end efforts to bring peace to Darfur."