Tag Archive for: accuses

China accuses United States of hacking top space and aviation university

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What just happened? China is regularly accused of using state-sponsored hackers to infiltrate American systems, government agencies, and organizations, but the Asian country claims the US is far from innocent when it comes to engaging in these sort of activities. The latest allegation is that the NSA hacked a government-funded university that specializes in aviation, aerospace, and navigation studies.

According to a statement from China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CNCERT/CC), the NSA’s Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO) sent phishing emails to teachers and students at Northwestern Polytechnical University in an attempt to steal data and personal information.

As with other phishing campaigns, the goal was to trick targets into clicking malicious links that would allow the TAO to steal email login details. The messages’ themes included scientific evaluation, thesis defense, and information on foreign travel.

According to The Global Times, a publication owned by the Chinese communist party, a team from CNCERT/CC and 360 Security Technology Inc. analyzed trojan samples from the university’s information systems after an attack was reported in June. They traced the hacks back to the TAO.

Chinese president Xi Jinping

China says the NSA was behind more than 10,000 “vicious” cyberattacks on targets within the country in recent years, collecting more than 140 GB of high-value data in the process.

The US has a long history of throwing hacking accusations at China. The CISA, NSA, and FBI issued an alert in June claiming Chinese state-backed hackers are using unpatched consumer routers and network-attached storage (NAS) devices to gain access to the infrastructure of major telecommunications companies, sending their traffic to Chinese servers.

In February, Federal Bureau of Investigation director Christopher Wray said China is behind more cyberattacks on the US than all other nations combined. He added that, at the time, the FBI was investigating 2,000 cases of Chinese attacks. He cited the Microsoft Exchange hack, which impacted the networks of 10,000 American companies, as an example of the damage Chinese hackers can cause the US…

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Missouri governor accuses journalist who warned state about cybersecurity flaw of criminal ‘hacking’

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When a St. Louis Post-Dispatch journalist discovered that the Missouri state teachers website allowed anyone to see the Social Security numbers of some 100,000 school employees, he did what any reporter might do. He published a story about the security vulnerability — though not before warning the state and giving it time to remove the affected webpages.



A July 2020 file photo of Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, who called a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter a "hacker" after the discovery of a security flaw in a state website.

© Alex Brandon/AP
A July 2020 file photo of Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, who called a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter a “hacker” after the discovery of a security flaw in a state website.

Another official might have thanked the newspaper for spotting the flaw and giving a heads-up before publicizing it — or at least downplayed what appears to be an embarrassing government mishap. But Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) did the opposite: He called the journalist “a hacker” who may face civil or criminal charges for “decod[ing]” HTML code on the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website and viewing three Social Security numbers.

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The journalist was “acting against the state agency to compromise teachers’ personal information in an attempt to embarrass the state and sell headlines for their news outlet,” Parson announced Thursday. He said that he had referred the case to the Cole County prosecutor and the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s Digital Forensic Unit.

The announcement immediately drew appalled reactions from the Post-Dispatch and other journalistic organizations.

“We stand by our reporting and our reporter who did everything right,” Ian Caso, president and publisher of the Post-Dispatch, said in a statement. “It’s regrettable the governor has chosen to deflect blame onto the journalists who uncovered the website’s problem and brought it to DESE’s attention.”

Committee to Protect Journalists’ U.S. and Canada program coordinator Katherine Jacobsen called Parson’s legal threats “absurd.”

“Using journalists as political scapegoats by casting routine research as ‘hacking’ is a poor attempt to divert public attention from the government’s own security failing,” she told The Washington Post in an email.

A spokeswoman for…

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China rejects hacking charges, accuses US of cyberspying

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Beijing – China on Tuesday rejected an accusation by Washington and its Western allies that Beijing is to blame for a hack of the Microsoft Exchange email system and complained Chinese entities are victims of damaging U.S. cyberattacks.

A foreign ministry spokesman demanded Washington drop charges announced Monday against four Chinese nationals accused of working with the Ministry of State Security to try to steal U.S. trade secrets, technology and disease research.

The announcement that the Biden administration and European allies formally blame Chinese government-linked hackers for ransomware attacks increased pressure over long-running complaints against Beijing but included no sanctions.

A woman wearing a face mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus walks by the Microsoft office building in Beijing, Tuesday, July 20, 2021.

“The United States ganged up with its allies to make unwarranted accusations against Chinese cybersecurity,” said the spokesman, Zhao Lijian. “This was made up out of thin air and confused right and wrong. It is purely a smear and suppression with political motives.”

“China will never accept this,” Zhao said, though he gave no indication of possible retaliation.

China is a leader in cyberwarfare research along with the United States and Russia, but Beijing denies accusations that Chinese hackers steal trade secrets and technology. Security experts say the military and security ministry also sponsor hackers outside the government.

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U.S. justice department accuses Google of dragging its feet in antitrust trial, Telecom News, ET Telecom

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U.S. justice department accuses Google of dragging its feet in antitrust trialWASHINGTON: The U.S. Department of Justice accused Google of dragging its feet in providing documents in preparation for a trial on allegations that it broke antitrust law while the search and advertising giant said the government was being unreasonable.

In a joint filing late Thursday, the Justice Department said that Alphabet’s Google had balked at some search terms that the government wanted it to use to locate relevant documents. The Justice Department estimated the request to Google would produce 4.85 million documents.

It also said that Google had refused to agree to dozens of additional “custodians,” essentially people whose emails and other documents would be searched as part of pre-trial document production.

Google, for its part, said that they had reviewed more than 12 million documents for the government’s case, and expressed concern at the growing number of custodians whose documents were sought.

“The DOJ Plaintiffs’ proposal is unreasonable and not proportional to the needs of this case,” Google said in the filing.

The cases under discussion are the federal government and one of the state lawsuits against Google. Those actions are two of the five antitrust lawsuits filed against Big Tech last year.

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