What kind of institution is long -term monitoring of Chinese mobile phone?

On September 5th, the National Computer Virus Emergency treatment Center and 360 Company released a survey report on Northwestern Polytechnical University of Technology. Of tailored accessical, referred to as TAO).

What kind of institution is this office referred to as TAO?

TAO not only conducts malicious network attacks on various key enterprises and institutions in China, but also conducts no different voice monitoring of Chinese mobile phone users for a long time, illegally steal the text message content of mobile phone users, and positions it wirelessly. The above survey report revealed the corner of this mysterious organization.

The "Specific Invasion Office" is the NSA's network war intelligence collection unit. According to Michael Heiden, the 18th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, it has been active since 1998, but it was not named Tao until "last days of 2000".

US National Security Agency (NSA) Headquarters: IC Photo

For many NSA internal employees, TAO is also a mystery.

It is hidden in the surreal operation center in the NSA headquarters building of Midorburg, Maryland, with a large office isolated from other departments. There are armed guards outside the steel gate to the office. You need to enter the six -digit password to enter correctly. In addition to the password, a retina scanner is also set next to the gate.

The staff of TAO consists of military and civilian computer hackers, intelligence analysts, computer hardware and software designers, and electrical engineers. It implements a 24 -hour rotation system per day and works 7 days a week.

A former NSA official said in an interview with the "Foreign Policy" magazine that TAO's task is "simple", that is, secretly invading foreign target computers and telecommunications systems, cracking passwords, destroying target computer security systems, stealing storage data, copying all of all Data and data in the target email and text information system.

TAO has its own small secret intelligence collecting unit, known as "Access Technologies Operations Branch", including borrowers from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and FBIs (FBI) to perform the so -called "out -of -network operations".

Since its establishment, TAO has enjoyed a reputation for providing some secret intelligence in the American intelligence community. These intelligence involves various terrorist organizations, foreign governments for the development of American spy activities, ballistic missiles and global large -scale killing weapons, as well as the latest worldwide Politics, military and economic information.

Matthew Aid, a historian who specializes in NSA, said in an interview with Germany's "Mirror Weekly" that "what is difficult to obtain" is NSA's positioning of its TAO duties.

After more than 20 years of operation, TAO has now become a tactical implementation unit specializing in the large -scale network attacks on other countries, and the team has grown to more than 2,000 people. Its power deployment mainly relies on NSA's password centers in the United States and Europe, and six password centers have been announced.

Picture source: CCTV News

In 2013, Edward Snowden disclosed a number of confidential documents of NSA to the media, and multiple secret intelligence surveillance projects in the US government, including the "Prism" project, were exposed. This may be the first time that TAO has entered the public vision.

According to the Washington Post, a confidential document describing Tao's internal work states that it has a variety of software templates that can invade the "router, switch and firewall of common brands and models from multiple products supply chains." TAO uses software to encode the implant, so that it can resist the upgrade of software and equipment and continue to exist. Plants can copy storage data, capture information, and enter other connected networks through secure encryption links.

TAO's "hacker" prefers large -scale invasion of targets, instead of just attacking single devices, and a "infected" device will become the door to hundreds of thousands of equipment.

"You pry open the window somewhere so that when you return, the owner does not know that it is not locked, and you can enter when you want to enter." An intelligence official who did not want to disclose the name Described in an interview with the Washington Post.

According to the aforementioned investigation report, the head of NSA's attack theft of Northwestern Polytechnical University is Robert Edward Joyce. He was born on September 13, 1967, and entered NSA in 1989. He successively served as the deputy director and director of TAO. He is currently the director of NSA network security.

Robert Edward Joyce Source: Washington Post

"For the first time, we will look for (method)." In 2016, Joyce appeared publicly at the Usenix Enigma conference to explain the key to finding the weak link. "It is called a high -level continuous threat for a reason. We will constantly try and test until they finally enter (target)."

"If you really want to protect your network, then you must understand it, including all of the equipment and technologies," he said. "In many cases, we know the Internet better than those who design and run them." TAO To understand the Internet world so, we know very little about this institution.

According to the "Foreign Policy", everything about TAO is listed as the highest secret, even within the high -level NSA. During the ten years after its establishment, the name of TAO only appeared several times in public. Advanced intelligence officials were polite but firmly warned that a few reporters who dared to inquire about it, do not describe its work, because it may endure it. " Constant efforts ".

"TAO believes that the less people know about it, the better," said a familiar US defense official.

On September 5, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mao Ning said in response to the Internet attack on Western Institute of Technology that the United States' act is seriously harmful to China's national security and personal information security of citizens. China strongly condemned this, we asked the United States to explain and immediately stop illegal behavior.

Mao Ning emphasized that network space security is a common problem facing countries around the world. As a country with the most powerful network technology, the United States should immediately stop using its own advantages to steal and attack other countries, and participate in global network space management with a responsible attitude. To maintain a constructive role in maintaining network security.

Source: CCTV News, Foreign Policy Magazine, Washington Post, Germany "Spiegel Weekly", etc.

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