Chinese hackers attacked US defense group networks

Chinese hackers attacked the VPNs manufactured by a US company to penetrate the digital networks of US defense companies, IT security adviser Mandiant announced this on Tuesday.

The Mandiant report linked at least two groups of hackers, one of whom was considered close to the Chinese regime, to malicious software exploiting VPN vulnerabilities. (systems that allow a secure connection to be established) manufactured by the Pulse Secure company, which is part of the Ivanti group.

Hackers used the malware to steal the identities of VPN users between October 2020 and March 2021 and penetrate the computer systems of advocacy groups, the document said.

According to Mandiant, governments and financial companies in Europe and the United States were also targeted. which identified one of the groups under the name UNC2630.

“We suspect that UNC2630 is operating on behalf of the Chinese government and may be associated with APT5.According to a group of hackers associated with Beijing authorities, the report said.

He added that “a trusted third party” also linked APT5 to the hack.

“APT5 regularly attacks the networks of high-value groups “and” his favorite targets appear to be aerospace and defense companies in the United States, Europe and Asia ” Mandiant said, who did not specify how many companies were affected.

Pulse Secure confirmed most of Mandiant’s report, saying it has already offered solutions to its customers to block malicious software.

The VPN manufacturer claimed the attack had hit “a limited number of customers.”

Similar attacks had already been registered by hackers in the United States, as is the case with Microsoft, which warned in March of this year that Chinese hackers had managed to gain access to users’ emails.

The hackers, with support from the Xi Jinping regime, tried to steal information in areas as diverse as infectious disease research, law firms, higher education, defense contractors and NGOs.

Microsoft said that A ‘highly skilled and sophisticated’ group of hackers sponsored by a government and operating out of China has attempted to steal information from various US targetsincluding universities, defense contractors, law firms and infectious disease researchers.

In a post on the company’s official blog, the company’s vice president for security and user confidence, Tom Burt, indicated that hackers were taking advantage of four previously unknown system weaknesses.

By identifying the errors in the system that the hackers managed to gain access to the server, from where they were able to steal information such as email accounts and contacts while installing malware or malware.

That same month, a group of hackers backed by the Chinese regime attacked the systems of two Indian vaccine manufacturers whose injections for the coronavirus were used in the country’s immunization campaign, he published. Reuters with information he had access to the cyber intelligence company Cyfirma.

(With information from Europa Press and Reuters)

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