On December 1st, 2011, Jeff Gray reported for the Globe and Mail how Chinese hackers may have attacked Canadian financial institutions and government offices in a bid to discover information about the takeover of Potash Corp. (a company that produces Potash, which is basically a fertilizer component). The article explains that cyberattacks on Canadian government computers were in fact a decoy, and the hackers real goal was to "distract anyone tracing the activity from . . . getting information about BHP Billiton Ltd. ultimately unsuccessful $38-billion bid for Potash Corp. in 2010."
Who cares about Canadian fertilizer companies getting hacked, right? Well, the article noted that a Chinese state-owned fertilizer group had considered a takeover bid for Potash Corp., and was ultimately afraid that BHP would "control the global supply for potash." Moreover, several firms related to the takeover were also reportedly hacked. I find this story interesting because of the new dimension to cyberattack. Rather than pilfering intellectual property, or attacking physical infrastructure, or degrading computer systems, Chinese hackers apparently used a cyberattack to gain information on a business takeover, and used that information to their business advantage.
The rest of the article can be found here.
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UPI.com reported on the same cyberattack on Canadian systems. According to the article, the cyberattack forced the Canadian government to turn off internet access for must users in the Canadian federal Finance Department and Treasury Board and the Department of National Defense. These departments "still have limited or no online access."
The article goes on to say that there were a series of very sophisticated hacking attacks directed against seven major law firms in Toronto. These firms were associated with the takeover of Potash Corp.
As for that takeover of Potash Corp. by the Australian resource giant BHP, China openly opposed the takeover because China "is one of the biggest importers of potash, used in agricultural fertilizers."
The source article can be found here.
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