Digital espionage is so rife in China it's believed Prime Minister John Key, ministers and their officials are taking no risks with their personal cell phones and laptops when visiting that country.
Digital espionage is so rife in China it’s believed Prime Minister John Key, ministers and their officials are taking no risks with their personal cellphones and laptops when visiting that country.
Security sources understand they use so-called clone phones there instead of their regular mobiles.
The clone phones do not contain any classified or sensitive information like emails, text messages or contact lists that could be hacked by Chinese intelligence agencies or big business.
John Key's office refused to discuss the issue with NBR Online saying only “we do not comment on matters of security”, but those in the know believe there are special security protocols for ministerial visits to China.
It would seem they are following in the footsteps of many high-powered visitors to China who employ a raft of security measures every time they go there.
Typically, they leave their cellphones and laptops at home, hiring or borrowing devices which are “cleaned” before and after their visit.
And once in China they disable Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, never let their phones out of their sight and remove the battery during meetings in case the microphone is turned on remotely.
They also only connect to the internet through an encrypted, password-protected channel and copy and paste their passwords from a USB thumb drive.
Typing in a password directly is a no-no because the Chinese are adept at installing key-logging software on laptops.
One American cybersecurity expert was recently quoted as saying that “everybody knows that if you’re doing business in China in the 21st century, you don’t bring anything with you. That’s 'Business 101' – at least it should be.”
In fact, US politicians have now been instructed by Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to only bring “clean” devices to China and have been forbidden from connecting to the government’s network while abroad.
Mr Rogers says as for himself, he only travels “electronically naked”.
