A Chinese spokesperson said “relevant parties are hyping up” the attacks to smear the country’s image
Author of the article:
Bloomberg News
Ben Westcott
Published Jul 08, 2024 • Last updated 9 hours ago • 1 minute read
The U.S. and its allies have accused China’s top spy agency of directing cyberattacks against government and private sector entities through a group of hackers.
In an Australia-led report published on Tuesday morning, cybersecurity and intelligence agencies for the U.S., U.K., Canada, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and Germany said that Advanced Persistent Threat 40 had “repeatedly” targeted governments across the Indo-Pacific. The group was able to steal hundreds of unique user names and passwords in one incident in April 2022, as well as intercepting multi-factor authentication codes, the report said.
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“The authouring agencies assess that this group conduct malicious cyber operations for the PRC Ministry of State Security,” the report said, adding that APT40 more regularly exploited vulnerabilities in public-facing infrastructure rather than using techniques which required user interaction, such as phishing campaigns.
When asked about the accusation at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said that “relevant parties are hyping up so-called Chinese cyberattacks again in an attempt to smear China on cybersecurity.”
It is rare for Australia in particular to explicitly accuse the Chinese government of involvement in cyberattacks, particularly following the improvement of relations between Canberra and Beijing since the election of the center-left Labor administration in May 2022. In June, Chinese Premier Li Qiang became the first official of his seniority to visit Australia in more than seven years, a major milestone in the normalization of diplomatic ties between the two countries.
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Australia’s Home Affairs and Cybersecurity Minister Clare O’Neil said in a statement that cyber intrusions by foreign governments were “one of the most significant threats we face.”
“Every day our intelligence agencies work tirelessly to identify and disrupt these actors,” she said.
With assistance from James Mayger
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