By Tenzin Monlam
DHARAMSHALA, December 27: The Tibetan Prime Minister (Sikyong) Dr. Lobsang Sangay said that China is ‘remotely accessing the computer servers in Dharamshala’ to sabotage the Central Tibetan Administration’s systems and disrupt communications with other governments.
In an interview with The Sunday Standard, the Prime Minister said that Beijing is planting spywares and malwares and disguising the IP address of the target computer system.
“China is also seeking to drive a wedge between CTA and foreign governments by infecting our computer systems. Efforts are on to secure the servers in Dharamshala which is used by the Chinese as a transit point to launch cyber attacks globally,” Sangay told the Delhi-based weekly ePaper.
The Tibetan leader also citied the survey carried out by Munk School of Global Affairs of Toronto University, which showed that the attacks on the servers and computer system of the exile Tibetan government are ‘highly targeted’ with a low anti-virus detection.
Sangay, currently in his second term as PM, expressed his concerns regarding the Chinese hackers getting their hands on passwords and contacts by sending malware hidden in legitimate-looking email messages and attachments.
Suggesting an indigenous Operating System (OS), other than widely used OS like Microsoft or MacOS to check such attacks, intelligence officials say that hackers could easily target the Indian government systems using existing OS through the communications between the Tibetan exile government and Indian departments and ministries.
In 2008, Ghostnet, a large-scale cyber spying operation of China managed to compromise the systems of the CTA and the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Gaden Phodrang).
According to the survey, 30 percent of the infected hosts were systems at ministries of foreign affairs, embassies, international organizations, news media, and NGOs.
