Hacking Inquiry Puts China’s Elite in New Light

With its sterling reputation and its scientific bent, Shanghai Jiaotong University has the feel of an Ivy League institution.

The university has alliances with elite American ones like Duke and the University of Michigan. And it is so rich in science and engineering talent that Microsoft and Intel have moved into a research park directly adjacent to the school.

But Jiaotong, whose sprawling campus here has more than 33,000 students, is facing an unpleasant question: is it a base for sophisticated computer hackers?

Investigators looking into Web attacks on Google and dozens of other American companies last year have traced the intrusions to computers at Jiaotong as well as an obscure vocational school in eastern China, according to people briefed on the case.

Security experts caution that it is hard to trace online attacks and that the digital footprints may be a “false flag,” a kind of decoy intended to throw investigators off track.

But those with knowledge of the investigation say there are reliable clues that suggest the highly sophisticated attacks may have originated at Jiaotong and the more obscure campus, Lanxiang Vocational School in Shandong Province, an institution with ties to the Chinese military.

Last weekend, the two schools strongly denied any knowledge of the attacks, which singled out corporate files and the e-mail accounts of human rights activists.

A spokesman for Jiaotong told local news outlets that school officials were “shocked and indignant” to learn of the allegations. And a Lanxiang spokesman called the reports preposterous.

But analysts say Jiaotong and Lanxiang are certain to come under close scrutiny.

Jiaotong is one of China’s top universities, and one charged with helping transform this country into a science and technology powerhouse.

Source: AP