In what may be the first of many such formal disclosures, Intel included an unusual admission in its annual 10k filing to the SEC on Tuesday: It had been subjected to a “sophisticated incident” of computer hacking that might have been an act of “industrial or other espionage”.
The top semiconductor manufacturer said that the incident in question occurred last month, around the same time Google made a startling and more detailed announcement along similar lines. Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said there was no definitive link between the attempt to break into Intel and the spying campaign that targeted Google and as many as 30 other technology companies, including Adobe and Symantec.
Mr Mulloy also said the January attack wasn’t successful. But the 10k filing noted that hacks aimed at spying on or harming Intel or its users “are sometimes successful.”
What may be worse is what the company doesn’t know: “We seek to detect and investigate these security incidents and to prevent their recurrence, but in some cases we might be unaware of an incident or its magnitude and effects”, the filing said.
Before Google went public, companies generally only admitted to being hacked if state laws required them to notify end-users whose privacy might have been compromised. But Google, and it now appears Intel, have decided that the issue is of such importance that they are willing to face embarrassment if they can generate a serious national discussion about cyber-spying.
So far, the effort is working. The US government’s investigation of the breach against Google is leading to affiliates of the Chinese government, which analysts say has poured enormous resources into lifting military and commercial secrets from the West.
The US State Dept. is taking the matter seriously enough to have asked for an investigation by Beijing, which has denied responsibility.
Cyber security isn’t just for geeks anymore: It’s also for end-users concerned about identity theft and for investors, who don’t want to see trade know-how siphoned away.
I make that argument at more length and call for new policies in a just-published book on the topic called Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords who are Bringing Down the Internet. The book also follows two Western cyber-sleuths as they track the global trail of organised cyber crime.
I discuss it in a Financial Times video posted today.
