US News
Guam is home to US military installations that would be critical to responding in the event of a conflict in the Asia-Pacific region
Portal
Wed 24 May 2023 11:57pm BST
A state-sponsored Chinese hacker group has been spying on a variety of key US infrastructure organizations, from telecommunications to transportation hubs, Western intelligence agencies and Microsoft said.
The hackers have also targeted the US island territory of Guam, which is home to strategic American military bases, Microsoft said in a report on Wednesday, adding, “Containing this attack could be challenging.”
It wasn’t immediately clear how many organizations were affected, but the US National Security Agency (NSA) said it was working with partners including Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the UK, as well as the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, to identify violations.
US condemns China over ‘malicious’ cyberattacks including Microsoft hack
While Chinese hackers are known to spy on Western countries, this is one of the largest known cyber espionage campaigns against American critical infrastructure.
“A PRC [People’s Republic of China] “The state-sponsored actor lives off the land, uses built-in network tools to evade our defenses and leaves no trace,” Rob Joyce, NSA director of cybersecurity, said in a statement.
Such “rural” espionage techniques are more difficult to detect because they “use capabilities that are already built into critical infrastructure environments,” he added.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a Portal request for comment.
Microsoft said the Chinese group, which it dubbed “Volt Typhoon,” has been active since at least 2021 and is targeting a range of industries including communications, manufacturing, utilities, transportation, construction, shipping, government, information technology and education.
Unlike traditional hacking techniques, which often involve tricking a victim into downloading malicious files, Microsoft says this group infects a victim’s existing systems to find information and extract data.
Analysts were “moderately confident” that the Chinese campaign was developing capabilities that could disrupt critical US-Asia communications infrastructure in future crises, Microsoft added.
Guam is home to US military installations that would be critical to responding to a conflict in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Canadian cyber security authority announced separately that it has not yet received any reports of Canadian victims of the hacking attack.
“However, the Western economies are deeply interconnected,” it said. “Much of our infrastructure is tightly interconnected, and an attack on one can impact the other.”
The UK also warned that the techniques used by Chinese hackers on US networks could be applied worldwide.
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