Chinese 'Attacking Us From Every Direction', Says US FBI

Published Apr 25, 2017 04:00 AM
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"Chinese eating our lunch. Attacking us from every direction" said the US FBI's Deputy Director Andrew McCabe at the ASIS 2017 CSO Summit [link no longer available].

Speaking directly at the technology side, the FBI Deputy Director cited the Mirai botnet, driven by video surveillance products, encouraging cooperation with the private sector.

ASIS CSO Summit

The ASIS CSO Summit [link no longer available] is an annual conference of the security heads or deputies for large corporations, government agencies, critical infrastructure, etc.

Chinese Cybersecurity Attacks

Certainly, that the Chinese government sponsors cybersecurity attacks is well established. The Chinese government has a long history of doing so against the US. The fact that the FBI is emphasizing this to key security leaders is important.

Impact on Hikvision and Dahua

While the low-end is happy with low prices and monthly across the board sales, CSOs and heads of security of large organizations are much more concerned about cybersecurity risks and have the resources, funding and prioritization to do so.

For Dahua, fresh off their 0-day backdoor discovery, the FBI's warning is further motivation for large scale security leaders to stay away.

And then there is Hikvision, with a poor track record, a new vulnerability still obscured, and owned by the Chinese government, the very entity driving these attacks.

Both companies go-to move is cutting prices but this works far less well in the Enterprise and will be a horrible excuse when an incident occurs and the CSO is explaining to the FBI that "Hey, Hikvision / Dahua gave us a great deal on these networked surveillance devices. What could possibly go wrong?"

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