Shadow cyber spy network revealed

A "complex cyber-espionage" network that penetrated various organisations including the Office of the Dalai Lama, has been uncovered by researchers.

The shadow network targeted government, business, and academic computers at the United Nations and the Embassy of Pakistan in the US, among others.

It was used to steal at least 1,500 emails from the Office of the Dalai Lama, the researchers said.

The attacks were thought to originate in the city of Chengdu in China.

Specifically, the researchers, from the Information Warfare Monitor and the Shadowserver Foundation, said they had evidence of "links between the Shadow network and two individuals living in Chengdu".

Information Warfare Monitor comprises researchers from Ottawa-based think tank SecDev Group and the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies.

The individuals were identified by e-mail addresses and are thought to be part of China's "underground hacking community".

The network was outlined in a report called Shadows in the Cloud.

"The social media clouds of cyberspace we rely upon today have a dark, hidden core," said Professor Ron Diebert, director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre, launching the report.

"There is a vast, subterranean ecosystem to cyberspace within which criminal and espionage networks thrive."

He said the network had reached into the "upper echelons of the Indian security establishment" and should act as a "wake up call" to governments to co-operate on cybersecurity.

Social exploits

The team said its eight-month investigation showed no "hard evidence" of the involvement of the government of the People's Republic of China,

"An important question to be entertained is whether the PRC will take action to shut the Shadow network down," the report said.

China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a press conference that the country was "firmly opposed" to hacking

"We have from time to time heard this kind of news. I don't know the purpose of stirring up these issues," she said.

She added the researchers have not formally contacted China, although the researchers said they had contacted the country's Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert).

"We would expect that kind of statement," said Professor Diebert.

"Have a look at that report and make up your mind whether you think it is groundless."

The researchers said that the network - known as a botnet - exploited social networking and cloud computing platforms, "including Google, Baidu, Yahoo, and Twitter" to infect computers with malicious software, or malware.

This allowed hackers to take control of the PCs of several foreign ministries and embassies across the world.

A more complex network of "command and control" computers was used to control the infect computers.

'Secret contents'

In 2009, the team previously exposed GhostNet, a massive network that was found to have infiltrated 1,295 computers in 103 countries. That investigation had started at the request of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader.

The new investigation showed that his office had been targeted again, with more than 1,500 letters sent from the Dalai Lama's office between January and November 2009 recovered by the team.

The researchers said that they had also recovered a number of documents that were in the possession of the Indian government, including two documents marked "secret", six as "restricted", and five as "confidential".

Recovered documents included Canadian visa applications.

The team said they had no direct evidence that they had been stolen form Indian Government computers. Instead, they said, the documents may have been stolen after being copied onto personal computers.

In addition, the researchers found evidence that the hackers had targeted the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacifc (UNESCAP).

However the team said the hackers had been largely "indiscriminate in what they took".

"The attackers disproportionately took sensitive information but also took financial and personal information," the team said at launch.

The team said the investigation is ongoing.

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Scores of Indian soldiers killed in Maoist ambushes

Maoist rebels have killed at least 75 Indian soldiers in a series of attacks on security convoys in the central state of Chhattisgarh, officials say.

A large patrol of federal paramilitary troops was ambushed at dawn by hundreds of heavily armed insurgents in a remote part of Dantewada district.

Rescue teams were later ambushed in attacks using landmines and gunfire.

Correspondents say it is the worst attack on security forces by the rebels since their insurgency began.

India's Home Affairs Minister P Chidambaram said the attack showed the brutality and savagery that the rebel army was capable of.

But he suggested lessons had to be learnt quickly by the security forces.

"Something has gone very wrong. They seem to have walked into a trap set by the Naxalites [Maoists]. Casualties are quite high and I am deeply shocked," he said.

Home Secretary Gopal K Pillai said that the rebels had booby-trapped the area of the ambush.

"Preliminary reports indicate that the Maoists planted pressure bombs in surrounding areas at places where the security forces might take cover," he said.

"As a result of this, the bulk of the casualties have arisen from the pressure bomb blasts."

The Maoists have stepped up attacks in recent weeks in response to a big government offensive along what is known as the "red corridor", a broad swathe of territory in rural eastern and central India where the Maoist rebellion has been gathering strength.

Nearly 50,000 federal paramilitary troops and tens of thousands of policemen are taking part in the operation in several states.

The rebels have tapped into rural and tribal anger among those who have seen no benefits from India's economic development and this attack is another chilling reminder of the growing threat they pose, says the news channel in Delhi.

Talks call

Thousands of people have died during the rebels' 20-year fight for communist rule.

The latest attacks come two days after rebels killed at least 10 policemen and injured 10 more in a landmine attack on a police bus in the eastern state of Orissa.

The rebels say they will step up attacks unless the government halts its offensive against them.

Mr Chidambaram has said troops will intensify the offensive if the rebels do not renounce violence and enter peace talks.

The Maoists want four senior leaders freed from jail and the offensive halted before any talks.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist insurgency as India's "greatest internal security challenge".

The Maoists say they are fighting for the rights of the rural poor who they say have been neglected by governments for decades.

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Anti-psychotic drugs link to pneumonia warning

The use of anti-psychotic drugs in the elderly doubles the risk of potentially fatal pneumonia, say Dutch researchers.

A study of almost 2,000 patients found the increased risk starts soon after treatment begins and concluded that patients should be closely monitored.

An expert review published in 2009 found the drugs are overused in many cases and are responsible for up to 1,800 deaths in the UK every year.

Ministers have said they want to see a significant cut in their use.

The latest research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine compared the health records of 258 over-65s with pneumonia with 1,686 patients without the infection.

Of those with pneumonia, a quarter died within a month.

When they looked at prescribed drugs, they found current use of anti-psychotics was associated with a roughly two-fold increase in the risk of pneumonia.

Those on the newer types of anti-psychotic drugs were slightly less likely to have the infection than those on the older class of drugs but were still at significant increased risk.

The risk was found to start soon after treatment and increased the higher the dose of drugs the patient was prescribed.

Evidence

The researchers from Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam said: "Clinicians who start treatment with anti-psychotic drugs should closely monitor patients, particularly at the start of therapy and if high doses are given."

Last year's UK review found that around 180,000 dementia patients a year are given the drugs in care homes, hospitals and their own homes to manage aggression but only around 36,000 would actually benefit from them.

Measures suggested in the report and accepted by the government included better monitoring of prescribing practices and ensuring that, where necessary, they were prescribed for short periods of time.

Professor Steve Field, chair of the Royal College of GPs said: "Anti-psychotics are prescribed too frequently without doctors thinking about the consequences.

"This paper yet again gives us evidence why we should not prescribe them unless absolutely necessary and if you do you should closely monitor the patient."

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Digital Economy bill faces further scrutiny

Controversial elements of the Digital Economy Bill will face further scrutiny even if the bill is passed later, Commons Leader Harriet Harman has said.

Part of the bill, which refers to how copyright holders can block access to websites hosting pirated content, will be subject to further consultation.

Several MPs called for the whole bill to be delayed until after the election.

The Tories say "big questions" have been left unanswered while the Lib Dems seek greater scrutiny of some aspects.

Ms Harman revealed to Parliament that one element, known as Clause 18, will be subject to "a super-affirmative procedure" - meaning the details of it will require further Parliamentary scrutiny.

Clause 18 was hastily rewritten by the government. It was intended to future-proof the law against new methods of accessing pirated materials.

It grants rights-holders the power to force service providers to block access to websites hosting pirated content.

The Liberal Democrats have called for a similar procedure to be applied to the issue of how public wi-fi will be affected by the bill.

Currently, if the bill passes into law, the owners of publicly-accessed wi-fi will be held responsible for content that is illegally downloaded by individuals using the hotspot.

'Digital disappointment'

The second reading of the bill was somewhat overshadowed by the earlier announcement of the general election and few MPs gathered in the Commons to hear Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw introduce it.

However, a heated debate followed with several MPs, including Labour MP Tom Watson, calling for the more controversial elements of the bill to be removed.

Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt branded the bill a "digital disappointment of colossal proportions".

For the Liberal Democrats, culture spokesman Don Foster condemned the government for allowing a "totally inappropriate" amount of time for debate on such a major piece of legislation.

He said "large chunks" of the Bill were not controversial and needed to become law.

Earlier Ms Harman said the bill had already been subject to "considerable scrutiny" in the House of Lords, with seven days in committee, "longer than any other bill in this Parliamentary session".

But Mr Watson, a long-standing Labour opponent of the bill, urged the government to rethink rushing through the legislation.

"In the last seven days, 20,000 people have taken the time to e-mail their MPs. They are extremely upset that it won't have proper scrutiny," he said.

Internet piracy

Mr Bradshaw countered that "hundreds of thousands of people in the creative industries feel equally strongly that they need the legislation now".

He told MPs that a framework for dealing with those who pirated content was essential if alternative legal ways of distributing content were to get off the ground.

"It is not ideal that the bill will not enjoy full debate," he acknowledged but said that it had enjoyed "cross-party support".

There has been mounting public opposition to the bill, particularly the plans to give Ofcom the power to cut off the internet connections of persistent pirates.

Mr Bradshaw moved to reassure MPs that such measures would not be introduced for another year, and said he hoped a letter campaign to persistent net pirates would prove sufficient.

If suspensions of net accounts are necessary they will only be "temporary" he added.

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