It’s no secret that China is a major source of attacks on governments and political groups (and individuals). However, it’s been harder to prove that the Chinese government and military is directly involved in such attacks. At least until now.
According to this report on the Website theepochtimes.com, a short snippet from a recently released propaganda film produced by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), shows a custom built cyber attack tool being pointed at Websites belonging to Falun Gong, the spiritual group that has long been a target of oppression within China. The film is documentary proof that the PLA is engaged in offensive hacking against political targets inside and outside China.
The short film segment – all of six seconds – shows a user interacting with a simple interface that allows the attacker to choose a target network from a drop down list and insert an IP address to launch the attack from. In the segment shown, the IP Address of a U.S. university, the University of Alabama, Birmingham, is used to launch the attack. The screenshots shown in the film reveal the name of the software and that of the Electrical Engineering University of China’s People’s Liberation Army, the university that created the tool, The Epoch Times reported.
China is believed to be the source of high profile attacks on U.S. government, military and commercial entities, including the Aurora attacks. However, the Chinese government has steadfastly denied that it is engaged in such practices. The propaganda film in question was created to illustrate how China is defending itself from the United States, which China sees as the aggressor in cyberspace.
