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Vast cyber espionage campaign linked to China: report

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Agence France-Presse

<p>WASHINGTON — Online attackers with clear links to China are behind a vast cyber espionage campaign targeting government agencies of interest to Beijing, Google subsidiary Mandiant said on Thursday.</p><p>&quot;This is the broadest cyber espionage campaign known to be conducted by a China-nexus threat actor since the mass exploitation of Microsoft Exchange in early 2021,&quot; said Mandiant chief technology officer Charles Carmakal.</p><p>The cyber attackers compromised computer defenses of hundreds of organizations, in some cases stealing &quot;emails of prominent employees dealing in matters of interest to the Chinese government,&quot; Carmakal added.</p><p>Mandiant reported having &quot;high confidence&quot; that a group referred to as UNC4841 was behind a wide-ranging espionage campaign &quot;in support of the People&#x27;s Republic of China.&quot;</p><p>The hackers targeted victims in at least 16 different countries, striking organizations in the public and private sectors worldwide, the report said.</p><p>The targeting focused on issues of high policy importance to the Chinese government, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region and Taiwan, according to the report.</p><p>Victims included foreign ministries as well as research organizations and foreign trade missions based in Hong Kong and Taiwan, Mandiant said in its findings.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/video/news/05/17/23/ngcp-allays-hacking-concerns">NGCP allays hacking concerns</a></li></ul><p>Cyber attacks involved email messages booby-trapped with malicious code, and exploited a vulnerability in Barracuda software for screening such missives to make sure they are safe, according to the report.</p><p>The cyber espionage activity was detected in May, and is believed to have started as early as October of last year.</p><p>&quot;We continue to see evidence of ongoing malware activity&quot; on some systems that were compromised, Barracuda told AFP.</p><p>The 2021 hack of Microsoft Exchange, attributed by security researchers to a Beijing-backed hacker group, affected at least 30,000 organizations in the US including businesses and local governments.</p><p>Several US federal agencies were fighting off a seemingly unrelated cyber attack on Thursday, according to CNN.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/02/08/23/spies-hackers-informants-how-china-snoops-on-the-us">Spies, hackers, informants: How China snoops on the US</a></li></ul><div><strong>RELATED VIDEO</strong></div><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9mGk4rH3RhE?enablejsapi=1" width="560"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more News on <a href="https://www.iwanttfc.com/#!/browse/Genres/News/tag_id_genres/id_news" target="_blank">iWantTFC</a></div>

The cyber espionage activity was detected in May, and is believed to have started as early as October of last year.