On Jan. 11th, 2012, Richard Stiennon wrote for Forbes on an interesting new development in cyber-espionage. Stiennon argues that all previous instances of cyber-espionage rely on the "claims from the injured parties." So we know that the Chamber of Commerce, the Pentagon, and a multitude of other entities have claimed that they were the victims of cyber-espionage. Although we can probably believe these entities, we can never be sure.
According to the article, that has changed. Remember the recent news that the Indian government may have hacked into the computers of a US-China commission? That news emerged because a hacker group called the Lords of Dharmaraja (who apparently are aligned with Anonymous) leaked documents purporting to show some pretty extensive Indian hacking. Stiennon believes that by finding evidence of hacking by the offending government, on the offending government's servers, we may just have our first documented case of cyber-espionage.
The Forbes source article can be found here.
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I'm still interested in the claims against Apple, Nokia, and RIM. Those companies allegedly provided the Indian government with back-doors into smart phones in exchange for an Indian market share. Those back-doors may have been used to spy on the US-China commission. That's a pretty explosive allegation. A US company (Apple) providing a foreign government with the means to spy on the US government?
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