Cyberspies Target China Experts

Chinese cyberspies, who targeted the personal Gmail accounts of top U.S. officials, are trying to gain access to computers belonging to China specialists and defense contractors who circulate in and out of government and talk regularly with those in power, according to security experts who have tracked these schemes.

The stealth infiltration campaign, similar in tactics to the Gmail scheme that Google Inc. disclosed last week, represents cyberspies' efforts to circumvent the high security walls on official government email accounts. Such targeted "phishing" expeditions involved sending booby-trapped e-mails to people who have information a hacker is seeking. The e-mails typically appear to have been sent by a trusted colleague and ask the recipient to open an attachment. When that is done, a malicious software program is placed on the computer that could perform multiple functions, such as tracking all keystrokes or providing full access to an organization's computer network. They frequently are used to obtain access to passwords and private correspondence. Their occurrence has spiked in the past few months, security experts say. Kevin Mandia, CEO of the security firm Mandiant, said his firm saw four to five times the average number of attacks from China in April. "It was a huge uptick," he said.