Chinese military unit behind 'prolific and sustained hacking'

Security firm says Unit 61398 has stolen hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organisations in US, UK and Canada

A secretive Chinese military unit is believed to be behind a prolific series of hacking attacks, a US computer security company has said, contradicting claims in Beijing that the government is not involved in such operations.

The report, by Mandiant, identified the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Shanghai-based Unit 61398 as the most likely perpetrators of the hacking. The company said it believed the unit had carried out "sustained" attacks on a wide range of industries.

"The nature of Unit 61398's work is considered by China to be a state secret; however, we believe it engages in harmful computer network operations," Mandiant said. "It is time to acknowledge the threat that is originating in China, and we wanted to do our part to arm and prepare security professionals to combat that threat effectively."

China has dismissed the allegations as "groundless", saying it strictly outlaws the practice, and says it has also been a victim of such crimes.

Questioned on the report, the foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said he doubted the evidence would withstand scrutiny. He said: "To make groundless accusations based on some rough material is neither responsible nor professional."

Unit 61398 is based in the Pudong district, China's financial and banking hub, and is staffed by perhaps thousands of people proficient in English as well as computer programming and network operations, the report said.

It said the unit had "stolen hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organisations across a diverse set of industries beginning as early as 2006". Most of the victims were located in the US, with smaller numbers in Canada and Britain. The information stolen included details on mergers and acquisitions and the emails of senior employees, the report said.

China has consistently denied being involved in such activities, but experts have dismissed the denials. "The PLA plays a key role in China's multifaceted security strategy, so it makes sense that its resources would be used to facilitate economic cyber-espionage that helps the Chinese economy," said Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer and co-founder of CrowdStrike, a web security firm.

Over $635,000 in counterfeit Apple Lightning adapters and cables seized in Anchorage

“More than $635,000 in counterfeit Apple adapters and USB cables were seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) during a routine search in Anchorage, the agency announced Thursday,” Laurel Andrews reports for The Alaska Dispatch.

“The goods arrived in Alaska via plane from China, and were heading toward several locations in the continental U.S.,” Andrews reports. “Designed to look like iPhone 5 USB "lightning" connector cables and adapters, the products included fake Apple logos and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) trademark icons.”

Andrews reports, “The items stood out as counterfeits, Frank Falcon, CBP spokesman said. They were packaged for retail sale in cardboard blister packs that were sub-standard compared to Apple’s trademark white packaging... The seized items will be destroyed.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]

Analyst reiterates $1,111 price target on Apple shares; says iPad mini is major catalyst

“On Friday, Brian White of Topeka Capital reiterated his buy rating on Apple and has maintained his price target of $1,111,” Richard Saintvilus reports for Forbes.

“In his research note, White pointed to the iPad mini as a major catalyst in international markets such as Hong Kong, where the smaller tablet was launched just a couple of weeks ago,” Saintvilus reports. “White says there has in an ‘insatiable appetite in both Hong Kong and China for the iPad mini, leading to further supply constraints in recent days.’”

Saintvilus reports, “He also noted that there have been shortages at both Apple stores in mainland as well as complete sell-outs at the location in Honk Kong.”

Read more in the full article here.

China’s Alibaba targets unreliable sellers with increased transparency on B2B site Alibaba.com

Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has taken a note out of ebay’s book as it announced it is now showing visitors more details about “problem suppliers” on Alibaba.com, its B2B website for small businesses.

The site has not gone so far as to allow users to rate and comment on every transaction, as the US site does, but instead it has increased the scope of the customer complaints notifications that it posts on seller pages. They used to only cover fraud-related issues, but now the notifications include more routine complaints, such as product quality or delivery delays.

Alibaba explains that those committing fraudulent activities are being kicked off the site rather than just reported, as it looks to fine-tune its feedback and complaints channel to promote safer shopping and greater buyer awareness.

“Alibaba.com hopes the added disclosure can help buyers make more informed decisions when comparing suppliers”, it says in a post on its Alizila website.

Alibaba.com still encourages its seller and buyers to resolve their disagreements themselves. However, in cases where the service’s staff find that a seller is at fault in a dispute, it will be included on their page as a warning for customers.

Each seller site shows the number of resolved and unresolved customer issues that have happened within the last 90 days, which at least encourages sellers to learn from any mistakes they make.

That number is listed on all seller pages — from storefronts, to promotion pages and specific product pages — but prospective customers must visit ‘company profile’, then ‘buyer interactions’ to find specific details of each customer complaint – including the nature of complaint and whether it has been resolved or not.

Proof of Alibaba’s thriving range of ecommerce sites — one of which is Alibaba.com — came when the company brought in $3.1 billion in sales during China’s version of Cyber Monday, held on November 11.

That figure is up 367 percent year-on-year and its Tmall.com B2C site took the bulk of sales ($2.1 billion) and C2C brand Taobao made $950 million during the 24-hour period. Alibaba says it played host to 10 million visitors alone in the first minute after midnight, and hit $40 million in gross merchandise value (GMV) within just 10 minutes.

The company is actively expanding outside of China and it has quietly attracted 2 million users outside of Greater China, primarily in Hong Kong (1.2 million) and Taiwan (500,000). It recently launched an ecommerce school in Thailand, its first outside of China.

Headline image via Aaron Tam/AFP/Getty Images

The Fake Android Powered iPhone 5 Is Already On Sale

Even large companies expect to have a bit of competition from counterfeit and copies, but when a device hits the net way before your new product is released, that must be a bit annoying! In this case the device is the iPhone 5, which Apple will be launching this September or October! However, the GooPhone Y5 claims many of the features rumoured to be coming with the iPhone 5, Apple will not be pleased.

These are some of the specs available according to the GooPhone website;

Original 960 x 640 retina screen, 8 million true pixels 3264 x 2448 Blue camera, MTK6575′s top chip, equipped with 1G frequency, 4G large ROM, dual-processor, powerful 3D graphics accelerator, Android 2.3.6 smart system, the reaction rate is four times that of the old section of the game software compatibility is higher than 250% of the old section of the graphics processing power of the old section of 2.5 times, using 40 nanometer low-power technology, more than 30% energy saving than the old models.

Even though this may be rip of the forthcoming iPhone 5 expect to pay around $200 in the US or 127 in the UK, for this non Apple or iOS version!

Source [The Register]

Diablo III offline play crack released in beta form

Blizzard decided the easiest method to protect Diablo III from piracy would have implement always-connected DRM thru Battle.world wide web. It has ended in more than a few conditions, thousands of irritated gamers, along with the threat of some lawsuits.Despite the fact that all that has actually been playing available over the past so often, renowned Chinese language hacking party Skidrow has been working aside on a shot. The online DRM Diablo 3 uses, operates by constantly taking a look at to see if a user is associated while walking the game. Now Skidrow has developed a new server emulator that causes the game find that it's connected to Combat.net much more fact the gamer is practicing offline.Typically the crack still is a work in progress, but it really does work in with regards to allowing this game to load and go, and a 'beta' version has become released as being a torrent. What's more, it looks like it offers a LAN engage in option suggesting you can always play with buddies. However, mainly because the game essentially runs on the internet it is obviously devoid of a good deal content nowadays. And in purchase for that article content to be further, Skidrow would have to acquire it provided by Blizzard’s servers and even add it to their own emulated internet computer.As Diablo III isn’t available in Cina yet, imagine how common the unravel is going to be despite that it doesn’t accomplish that much though. With the troubles gamers were having worldwide, it’s likely to unfold very quickly.So well received are Blizzard adventures in The far east, legitimate press website in your neighborhood are credit reporting the crack as a constructive development. For instance , Tencent and the People’s Each day, who even ask users to always be patient with the bugs these find in all of the crack.With regard to Blizzard, it will necessarily suggest alarm bells ringing. Not having the game for sale in China and taiwan means countless gamers may revert to attempting to region it. Even when it contributes to nothing, the software opens the way that for trojans to start growing as part of torrents saying to be all of the offline let it, and it will jumble more than a few participants eager to have fun with the game at any cost.All Blizzard can do is make sure you figure out how to discontinue the equipment emulation from working hard and adding to clients having patch. How the it should ensure it has bullet proof security keeping the Battle.net support crew in case somebody does aim to steal this Diablo III gameplay content.