CHINESE HACKERS HAD HIT INDIAN GOVT SITES: U.S.

Washington, Sept. 17: The US Justice Department has charged five Chinese citizens with hacking over 100 companies and institutions in America and abroad, including the Indian government’s networks, and stealing software data and business intelligence.

Deputy US Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen on Wednesday announced that three indictments had been unsealed in the matter that collectively charge five Chinese nationals with computer hacking and two Malaysian nationals with helping some of those hackers target victims and sell the fruits of their crime.

The Malaysians were arrested on Sunday and the Chinese nationals have been declared fugitive. Rosen severely criticised the Chinese government. “The Department of Justice has used every tool available to disrupt the cyberattacks by these Chinese. Regrettably, China has chosen a different path — of making China safe for cyb-ercriminals so long as they attack computers outside China,” he said.

“In about 2019, the conspirators compromised Government of lndia websites, as well as virtual private networks and database servers supporting the Government of India. The conspirators used VPS Provider servers to connect to an open VPN network owned by the Government of India,” the indictment said.

In the attacks, the conspirators installed ‘Cobalt Strike’ malware on Indian g over nment- protected computers, it added.

According to the charges, the computer intrusions affected over 100 companies in the United States and abroad.

The victims ranged from software development, computer hardware, telecommunication, social media and video game companies. Non-profit organisations, universities, think-tanks, foreign governments, pro-democracy politicians and activists in Hong Kong were also targeted. Security researchers have tracked the intrusions using labels like APT41, Barium, Winnti, Wicked Panda, and Wicked Spider.

These intrusions facilitated the theft of source code, software code signing certificates, customer account data, and valuable business information, the researchers said.

These intrusions also facilitated the defendants’ other criminal schemes, including ransomware and crypto-jacking schemes, the latter refers to the group’s unauthorised use of victim computers to mine cryptocurrency.

The Chinese hackers targeted government computers and networks of Vietnam and the United Kingdom. The hackers were not successful in compromising the government computer networks in the United Kingdom.

The racketeering conspiracy pertained to the three defendants’ conducting the affairs of Chengdu 404 Network Technology (Chengdu 404), a Chinese Government company, through a pattern of racketeering activity involving computer intrusion offenses affecting over 100 companies, organisations, and individuals in the United States and around the world, including in Australia, Brazil, Chile, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam, the justice department said. —