Dalai Lama Becomes Target of Cyber Espionage

Even the Dalai Lama isn't safe from hackers. Unknown cyber spies, most them operating from computer servers located in the People's Republic of China, used cloud computing systems, social networking platforms and free web hosting services to steal sensitive and classified materials belonging to the United Nations, Indian National Security Council Secretariat, the Embassy of Pakistan in the United States, New York University and the Offices of the Dalai Lama, among others.

The details are reported in this 51-page report, "Shadows in the Cloud," compiled after an eight-month investigation by the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and the Ottawa-based security analysis firm SecDev Group.

In the report, the investigators lay out why they conducted this report, how they did it and what they found. They describe a hacking operation called the "Shadow network" that the security team observed breaking into computers and taking information.

They write, "While we only have limited insight into the motivations and methods of the attackers, we believe they infected victims primarily via email using social engineering techniques to convince their victims to open malicious file attachments...."

Once the computers were infected, the documents were stolen unbeknownst to the victims. Based on the victims and the type of documents stolen, the investigators concluded: 

"...the most plausible explanation, and the one supported by the evidence, is that the Shadow network is based out of the PRC by one or more individuals with strong connections to the Chinese criminal underground. Given the often murky relationships that can exist between this underground and elements of the state, the information collected by the Shadow network may end up in the possession of some entity of the Chinese government."

Photo: AP Photo/Darko Bandic

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