Chinese hacker gangs are breaking into computers of Italian fashion houses to steal ideas and duplicate them before the genuine articles can hit the streets.
ROME: Chinese hacker gangs are breaking into computers of Italian fashion houses to steal ideas and duplicate them before the genuine articles can hit the streets, The Washinton Times reported on Monday.
“Platoons of seasoned, unscrupulous cyber pirates, crackers and hackers of every kind ... make up a significantly growing and unstoppable army,” the newspaper quoted a report in Gnosis, a magazine published by Italy’s SISDE counterintelligence agency.
The report in the current edition of Gnosis describes a “Chinese boom” in Internet crime. “Once upon a time, the Chinese came to the West to photograph the windows of shoe stores or fashion boutiques to copy the products. Today, instead, they steal projects directly from the servers of producing firms so that they can put counterfeit products on the market before they are distributed commercially,” it says.
“On the Internet the Chinese sell everything, from human organs to poisonous medicines. They traffic in weapons, drugs, gambling and so on. ... Chinese cyberspace is fuelling a massive amount of criminal business.”
The report also claims that Chinese mobsters profit most from pornography — including sites that sell videos for paedophiles and traffic in date-rape drugs, heroin and counterfeit medicines.
A spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in Washington dismissed the “sensational” SISDE report as “irresponsible” and driven by “ulterior motives”, the news paper reported. “The Chinese government expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to it,” spokesman Chu Maoming told The Washington Times.
Paola Pisa, fashion reporter for the Rome daily Il Messaggero, said the report deserves attention from fashion houses such as Fendi, Gucci and Prada, whose accessory designs frequently are copied illicitly.
“There already are many copies on the market all over the streets of Rome, and they often look very good,” she said. “Street sellers offer what seems like a Gucci purse for $7. Counterfeiting is an enormous problem, and if fashion houses’ computers are now at risk, they must take countermeasures to protect themselves.”
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