China denies involvement in ‘man-in-the-middle’ iCloud attack

“The Chinese government has denied reports that it was involved in an attempt to steal user data from iCloud accounts within the country,” BBC News reports. “According to campaign website greatfire.org the service was subjected to a ‘man in the middle’ (MITM) attack. It took the form of a false website placed between the genuine log-in page and iCloud’s servers.”

“Greatfire said it resembled other government-backed attacks but a spokesman denied any involvement,” The Beeb reports. “Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, told journalists the government was ‘resolutely opposed’ to hacking. China Telecom, the country’s state-owned internet provider, also said the accusation was ‘untrue and unfounded.'”

“However, two security experts claim the allegations of government involvement are credible,” The Beeb reports. “‘The finger is definitely pointing in that direction,’ Prof Alan Woodward, a security researcher from the University of Surrey, told the BBC… ‘All the evidence I’ve seen would support that this is a real attack,’ said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure. ‘The Chinese government is directly attacking Chinese users of Apple’s products.'”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: In related news, the Chinese government says this guy was merely on his way to attend a lovely springtime picnic with tank operators and their adorable pugs before he magically disappeared into thin air:

Tank Man

Related article:
Apple’s iCloud service under man-in-the-middle attack in mainland China – October 21, 2014

15 Comments

        1. You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

          Abraham Lincoln

    1. So you’re saying that the Kent State incident is comparable to what China did to their own people over the Tiananmen Square protests?

      You’re a bigger idiot than I thought.

    2. I don’t know about Kent State. But I know full well that Totalitarianism doesn’t care where it is on the 1 dimensional political scale. It just wants TOTAL POWER. It doesn’t care what lies it has to tell to get it. That’s an excellent summary of China’s criminal government.

      BTW: Bravo Hong Kong! Kick them in the nuts! Freedom is for everyone. 😀

  1. I never see any reason to believe China’s criminal government.

    BUT, some security experts were chatting today about what an amateur hack job this MITM attack has been. China’s government has done better. Hopefully, we’ll get an idea of what really is going on. It would be amusing if this was a new generation of Red Hacker Alliance wannabes trying to show off their skillz. 😛

    (The Red Hacker Alliance was China’s original arm of hackers versus the world, especially versus the USA who had just granted China ‘Most Favored Nation’ status, circa 1998).

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