The "Chinese Firewall" (a pun on the "Great Wall of China") has been a well-known term in cyberspace for years, as it describes the main means of censorship/control of the Internet in the People's Republic of China.
Now, as researchers at the University of Toronto point out, the country's "arsenal" in this field has also included the so-called "Great Cannon", which is also the term used for a new tool of a similar nature.
As reported in a Guardian article, its first use was noticed in March, when GitHub was "flooded" with traffic, resulting in serious problems for a few days.
The DDoS attack appeared to target two specific targets: the Chinese NY Times mirror and the Chinese anti-censorship organization GreatFire.org. In both cases, these are entities/users that are active in circumventing the “Great Firewall,” which prevents users inside the country from accessing certain areas of the Internet.
The attack took place over a period of two weeks, and according to Bill Marczak, a researcher at the Canadian university, and his team, it is a new tool that operates aggressively and is separate from the "Chinese Firewall", with different capabilities and design. As explained, it is a particularly powerful tool that "intercepts" traffic from specific IPs and replaces unencrypted content, in the model of the "man in the middle" method.
Practically speaking, it gives its operators the ability to “rewrite” the Internet “on the fly.” From an offensive perspective, this means that any user (even a perfectly normal one) can be turned into a means of attack.
As the researchers conclude, this is a tool controlled by the Chinese government, just like the "Chinese Firewall": both systems appear to be based on the same servers and share source code for intercepting communications.
From an operational point of view, it appears to be of a particularly aggressive nature, and therefore it is likely that its use will require approval from high-ranking Chinese government officials.
At the same time, it is estimated that it may reflect a Chinese desire to challenge American "hegemony" in cyberspace, as it is believed that with minor changes it could be used to target targets outside the country.
Source: naftemporiki.gr
