Chinese State-Linked Cyberattackers Launch Massive Intelligence Campaign Targeting Government Agencies Worldwide: Report

Google Subsidiary Blames Chinese State for Large Cyber-espionage Campaign

Introduction

In a report released Thursday, a Google subsidiary blamed a group of cyberattackers it says are clearly linked to the Chinese state for a large intelligence campaign against government agencies in several countries representing Beijing’s strategic interest.

Cyber-espionage Campaign Overview

“This is the largest known cyber-espionage campaign launched by a China-linked malicious actor since the massive Microsoft Exchange exploit in early 2021,” said Charles Carmackal, chief technical officer of Mandiant, an information security company.

Email Theft and Espionage Activities

“For some of the victims, (the attackers) stole the emails of high-value employees working on files of interest to the Chinese government,” added Carmackal.

In its report, the company believes “with a high degree of confidence” that the group responsible for the attack via email “conducted espionage activities in support of China”.

It said the attackers “forcefully targeted specific data to be leaked,” noting that victims “lie in at least 16 different countries”.

It said the attack “targeted organizations in the public and private sectors around the world”.

Target Selection and Espionage Purposes

“About a third” of the number of victims are government agencies, which, according to Mandiant, supports the hypothesis that this attack was carried out for “espionage purposes”.

Target selection is directly related to “top priority issues for China, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, including Taiwan,” according to the company, which is a subsidiary of Google Cloud.

Among the victims are the foreign ministries of the countries belonging to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as research organizations and foreign trade missions based in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

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