The Dark Visitor

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This Chinese hacker intrusion flowchart above, taken from Stuhack, clearly demonstrates Chinese hackers have developed a methodology to their attacks.

The first thing that popped into my head when I saw the chart was the Police song, “Murder by Numbers.”

Is this intrusion chart unique? Probably not. Could they have taken it from someone else? Sure.

As always, many thanks to Jumper for helping me to get the correct terminology. I really had some of them botched.

From the Heilongjiang Daily, via News China, a 19-year-old Chinese hacker going by the online name of Autumn Breeze decided to deface the main page of the… Daqing Public Security Bureau website … and leave behind several taunting messages to include his contact information. Brilliant!

According to the report, Autumn Breeze felt that his skills at hacking were so good there was no way he could get caught. Well, it did take the police a little over an hour to track him down…so he has that going for him.

On 12 June, police who were working online discovered that a hacker had managed to gain access to the Daqing Public Sercurity Bureau website and leave behind several taunting messages:

“So, basically Daqing doesn’t have a cyber police force?”

“Do the cyber police just get paid to do nothing?”

“Is the software installed on the internet cafes used by the cyber police to collect fees?”

He also left behind the name “Autumn Breeze” and his e-mail contact information.

Under the direction of Captain Liu, of the Daqing Cyber Police, officers were able to track Autumn Breeze to a local internet cafe and arrest him while in the process of attacking another website. Autumn Breeze made a full confession saying, “Oh, you get paid to do this!”

Yeah, I may have fudged that last quote a bit.

WASHINGTON — Hackers believed to be operating from China have broken into computers in Congress, apparently in search of information on Chinese dissidents, two GOP lawmakers said Wednesday.

The hackers were not identified, but one of the lawmakers, Rep. Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey, a senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he thought all signs pointed to the Chinese government.

Federal authorities have been increasingly concerned in recent years about the Chinese government’s aggressive deployment of scientists, engineers, foreign businessmen, students and others to sweep up U.S. technology and information. Protecting the United States against cyber attacks and high-tech crimes is the FBI’s third priority, behind combating terrorism and public corruption.

The extent of the intrusions on Capitol Hill, which officials said began in August 2006, was unclear, although Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), whose office had four computers affected, said that other members of Congress were targeted, as well as at least one congressional committee. “They got everything,” Wolf said at a news briefing, describing the attack on his office systems.

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