Of the documents the researchers were able to recover, one was "encrypted diplomatic correspondence," two were marked “SECRET," six were “RESTRICTED” and five were designated “CONFIDENTIAL." They also discovered the hackers had accessed a year's worth of the Dalai Lama's personal email.
According to the researchers' report, "The profile of documents recovered suggests that the attackers targeted specific systems and profiles of users." As one member of the team told the New York Times, “I’ve not seen anything remotely close to the depth and the sensitivity of the documents that we’ve recovered.”
The Shadow Network is not linked to earlier attacks uncovered this year by Google and also based in China, nor is it related to GhostNet, a network who targeted the community of Tibetan exiles and identified by the same researchers.
However, this new network is linked to two individuals and a core of stable servers in Chengdu, People's Republic of China. Chinese officials have repeatedly denied any government connection to these cyber espionage activities.
SHADOWS IN THE CLOUD: Investigating Cyber Espionage 2.0
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, bunhill