Ron Deibert exposes the "dark hidden core" of cyberspace

April 6, 2010

With the release of their second investigation in as many years, University of Toronto researchers who uncovered a complex cyber-espionage network based in China are again urging Canada to address the growing problem or face the consequences of a future attack.

“Cyberspace is being militarized,” said Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and a lead researcher.

The investigative team from U of T and Ottawa-based SecDev Group released a report Tuesday that reveals how sophisticated hackers used Twitter, email and blogs to steal confidential national security data from India and spy on the Dalai Lama’s email.

“What the … report shows is that the social media clouds of cyberspace we rely upon today have a dark hidden core,” Deibert said.

The investigation into the Shadow network of hackers expands on last year’s GhostNet investigation, which discovered that more than 1,000 computers in more than 100 countries had been strategically targeted by hackers in China. Targets included foreign governments and NATO.

Deibert said the latest report should “offer a wake-up call” to the Canadian government, “or we may find that we are the next victim of the Shadows and GhostNets of cyberspace.”

To make their point more urgently, Deibert and his colleagues use the analogy of arms control to address issues of cyberspace security.

“For its part, the Canadian government has neither a domestic cyber-security strategy nor a foreign policy for cyberspace,” he said.

Decrying the “vacuum” of cyber-security policy internationally, Deibert suggested creating a treaty of cyberspace that would define the ‘rules of engagement,’ such as how governments respond to information attacks. They believe other arms-control mechanisms, such as those used to monitor nuclear testing, could offer lessons on how to monitor cyber attacks.

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