U.S. Chamber of Commerce breached by a group of Chinese hackers

It is only coming to light now, but back in May 2010 the U.S. Chamber of Commerce discovered that their data network had been breached by a group of Chinese hackers and successfully shut down the breach. The only problem is that the best guess currently is that the hackers may have had access to the network for more than a year.

According to the report that is in the Wall Street Journal Online the Chamber of Commerce isn’t sure exactly how much data might have been taken by the hackers but they have evidence that leads them to believe that the hackers were concentrating on four Chamber employees involved in Asian policy.

While the FBI is not saying anything regarding the matter some people familiar with the break-in believe it is the same group that U.S. officials believe has ties to the Chinese government. Of course the response from both the Chinese embassy and from Beijing is that it is against Chinese law to commit cyberattacks, and that the Chinese government itself is also a victim of similar attacks.

“What was unusual about it was that this was clearly somebody very sophisticated, who knew exactly who we are and who targeted specific people and used sophisticated tools to try to gather intelligence,” said the Chamber’s Chief Operating Officer David Chavern.

Nevertheless, Chamber officials said they haven’t seen evidence of harm to the organization or its members.

via WSJ