Chinese Hackers Break Into Big Oil's Computer Systems, Sensitive Documents Taken

Chinese hackers are at it again. This time they went after five multinational oil and gas companies and got some very sensitive information including bidding contracts, proprietary industrial processes and other financial documents. The attack is being called “Night Dragon” by Dmitri Alperovitch, McAfee’s vice president for threat research. Alperovitch said that, “It speaks to quite a sad state of our critical infrastructure security.” He also added, “These were not sophisticated attacks, yet they were very successful in achieving their goals.” McAfee was able to trace the origin on the attack to Beijing IP addresses and a server located in the Shandong Province. I don’t think anyone here is crying over this virtual kidnapping. “That information is tremendously sensitive and would be worth a huge amount of money to competitors,” said Alperovitch. If the companies were smart, they’d figure out a way to pay a ransom and get their stuff back. If the criminals were smart, they’d run and hide run and hide.