[kictanet] African Union accuses China of hacking its HQ

[Jeremiah Ngure]

Wow ..., and the way telcos in kenya have embraced Chinese equipment
including the 1B security infrastructure   it's just matter of when

On Jan 30, 2018 3:48 AM, "Ali Hussein via kictanet" <
kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

> Listers
>
> Something most of us suspected is happening seems to be happening at the
> Apex of African Government.
>
> *John Aglionby, East Africa Correspondent, and Emily Feng and Yuan Yang in
> Beijing *
>
> African Union officials have accused China of hacking its headquarters’
> computer systems every night for five years and downloading confidential
> data. Beijing funded the AU’s $200m building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,
> while a Chinese state-owned company built it.
>
> Analysts said the fact that the hack remained secret for a year after
> being discovered and that the AU was not commenting publicly demonstrated
> China’s dominant relationships with African states.
>
> The data theft was exposed by French newspaper Le Monde Afrique and
> confirmed to the Financial Times on Monday. China denied the accusation.
>
> The hack underscores the risk African nations take in allowing Chinese
> technology companies such prominent roles in developing their telecoms
> backbones, despite the US placing restrictions on investment by Huawei and
> ZTE.
>
> The two companies have “built most of Africa’s telecoms infrastructure”,
> according to a McKinsey report on Chinese investment in Africa published
> last year titled Dance of the Lions and Dragons.
> <https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/global%20themes/middle%20east%20and%20africa/the%20closest%20look%20yet%20at%20chinese%20economic%20engagement%20in%20africa/dance-of-the-lions-and-dragons.ashx>
>
> Le Monde reported that data transfer activity was at a peak every night
> between midnight and 2am from January 2012, when the building was
> inaugurated, to January 2017.
>
> AU technicians discovered the organisation’s secrets were being copied on
> to servers in Shanghai, according to the article.
>
> The AU has now acquired its own servers and all electronic communication
> is now encrypted and no longer passes through Ethio Telecom, Ethiopia’s
> state-run operator. Other enhanced security features have also been
> installed.
>
> Aly-Khan Satchu, an investment analyst in Nairobi, said the hack was
> “really alarming”, partly because it exposed that “African countries have
> no leverage over China”.
>
> He added: “There’s this theory in Africa that China is Santa Claus. It
> isn’t. Our leaders need to be disavowed of that notion.”
>
> China’s ministry of foreign affairs denied the hacking allegations,
> calling the reports “baseless” and “complete nonsense”.
>
> “China would in no way interfere with the internal policies of African
> countries or do anything that would hurt their interests,” it said in a
> statement on Monday.
>
> AU spokespeople declined to comment but an African diplomat attending the
> AU’s annual heads of government summit on Monday said there “would be a lot
> of anger over this”. “This is not the sort of thing Africans will entertain
> and take lightly,” he said.
>
> However, a western diplomat based in the region said the AU should not
> have been surprised considering China built and fitted out the 19-storey
> building that dominates the Addis Ababa skyline.
>
> “When you let them build the whole system, of course they are listening
> in,” the diplomat said.
>
> One AU official said there were “many issues with the building that are
> still being resolved with the Chinese. It’s not just cyber security.”
>
> China State Construction Engineering Corporation, the state-owned
> company that built the headquarters, could not be reached for comment.
> Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Company, the developer of another
> building on the AU headquarters site, said it had not seen the report and
> declined to comment.
>
> Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, promised $60bn in investment and aid to
> African countries at his last summit with African leaders, in South Africa
> two years ago. Chinese companies have built much of the road and rail
> infrastructure across the continent and more than 10,000 Chinese companies
> are active in the region, according to the McKinsey report.
>
> “There is no other country with such depth and breadth of engagement in
> Africa across the dimensions of trade, investment, infrastructure
> financing, and aid,” the consultancy’s report said.
>
> However, concerns about technological backdoors in Chinese tech hardware
> led US policymakers in 2012 to recommend blocking acquisition attempts from
> ZTE and Huawei.
>
> Huawei has repeatedly been barred from making acquisitions in the US over
> national security concerns. This month, American carrier AT&T dropped its
> deal with Huawei to distribute Chinese-made handsets in the US.
>
> Le Monde also reported that GCHQ, the British government listening agency,
> had intercepted communications between AU and UN officials in 2009 and
> 2010, citing documents released by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
>
> China hacks AU HQ
> <https://www.ft.com/content/c26a9214-04f2-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5>
>
> #SittingDucks..That's what we are.
>
>
> *Ali Hussein*
>
> *Principal*
>
> *Hussein & Associates*
>
>
>
> Tel: +254 713 601113
>
> Twitter: @AliHKassim
>
> Skype: abu-jomo
>
> LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
> <http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim>
>
>
> 13th Floor , Delta Towers, Oracle Wing,
>
> Chiromo Road, Westlands,
>
> Nairobi, Kenya.
>
> Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely
> mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the
> organizations that I work with.
>
> _______________________________________________
> kictanet mailing list
> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/kictanet
> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/
>
> Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/
> mailman/options/kictanet/jngure%40gmail.com
>
> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>
> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/pipermail/kictanet/attachments/20180130/ba12f4f5/attachment.htm>