US authorities are investigating whether Chinese officials secretly copied the contents of a government laptop computer during a visit to China by commerce secretary Carlos Gutierrez and used the information to try to hack into commerce computers, officials said.
Surreptitious copying is believed to have occurred when a laptop was left unattended during Gutierrez's trip to Beijing for trade talks in December, people familiar with the incident said, on condition of anonymity.
Gutierrez said on Thursday he could not discuss whether or how the laptop's contents might have been copied. "Because there is an investigation going on, I would rather not comment on that," he said. "To the extent that there is an investigation going on, those are the things being looked at, those are the questions being asked. I don't think I should provide any speculative answers."
A commerce department spokesman, Rich Mills, said he could not confirm such an incident in China. Asked whether the department has issued new rules for carrying computers overseas, Mills said: "The department is continuing to improve our security posture, and that includes providing updates, guidances and best practices to staff to maintain security."
It was not immediately clear what information on the laptop might have been compromised, but it would be highly unorthodox for any US official to carry classified data on a laptop overseas to China, especially one left unattended.
Surreptitious copying is believed to have occurred when a laptop was left unattended during Gutierrez's trip to Beijing for trade talks in December, people familiar with the incident said, on condition of anonymity.
Gutierrez said on Thursday he could not discuss whether or how the laptop's contents might have been copied. "Because there is an investigation going on, I would rather not comment on that," he said. "To the extent that there is an investigation going on, those are the things being looked at, those are the questions being asked. I don't think I should provide any speculative answers."
A commerce department spokesman, Rich Mills, said he could not confirm such an incident in China. Asked whether the department has issued new rules for carrying computers overseas, Mills said: "The department is continuing to improve our security posture, and that includes providing updates, guidances and best practices to staff to maintain security."
It was not immediately clear what information on the laptop might have been compromised, but it would be highly unorthodox for any US official to carry classified data on a laptop overseas to China, especially one left unattended.
~ Source: The Times of India ~
No comments:
Post a Comment