Chinese police put 3 U.S. operatives on wanted list over cyberattacks


Police authorities in Harbin, in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, said on Tuesday that they are pursuing three operatives affiliated with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) over suspected cyberattacks against China. The Harbin public security bureau said that the three operatives — Katheryn A. Wilson, Robert J. Snelling, and Stephen W. Johnson — had been engaged in cyberattacks targeting the Asian Winter Games held in the city in February.

Investigations by Chinese technical teams revealed that the cyberattacks were carried out by the Office of Tailored Access Operations of the NSA. To conceal the origins of its attacks and secure its cyber weapons, the office used multiple affiliated front organizations to purchase IP addresses from various countries and anonymously rented servers located in regions including Europe and Asia.

Read more…
Source: Xinhua News


Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.


Related:

  • China suspected in hack of journalists at News Corp

    February 4, 2022

    Digital intruders broke into News Corp email accounts and compromised the data of an unspecified number of journalists, the company disclosed Friday. The media firm’s internet security adviser said the hack was likely aimed at gathering intelligence for Beijing’s benefit. News Corp, which publishes the Wall Street Journal, said the breach was discovered in late January and ...

  • Potential for Malicious Cyber Activities to Disrupt the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics

    January 31, 2022

    The FBI is warning entities associated with the February 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and March 2022 Paralympics that cyber actors could use a broad range of cyber activities to disrupt these events. These activities include distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, ransomware, malware, social engineering, data theft or leaks, phishing campaigns, disinformation campaigns, or insider ...

  • German govt warns of APT27 hackers backdooring business networks

    January 26, 2022

    The BfV German domestic intelligence services (short for Bun­des­amt für Ver­fas­sungs­schutz) warn of ongoing attacks coordinated by the APT27 Chinese-backed hacking group. This active campaign is targeting German commercial organizations, with the attackers using the HyperBro remote access trojans (RAT) to backdoor their networks. HyperBro helps the threat actors maintain persistence on the victims’ networks by acting ...

  • DazzleSpy: Pro-democracy org hijacked to become macOS spyware distributor

    January 26, 2022

    Researchers have uncovered a new strain of macOS malware in targeted attacks against visitors to a Hong Kong pro-democracy radio station website. The website was used to facilitate a watering hole attack and to serve a Safari browser exploit to visitors, leading to the deployment and execution of spyware on victim machines. Dubbed DazzleSpy by ESET researchers, ...

  • Cyber attack on UK’s Defence Academy had ‘significant’ impact, officer in charge at the time reveals

    January 2, 2022

    A cyber attack – possibly by China or Russia – hit the academic arm of the UK’s Ministry of Defence and had a “significant” impact, the officer in charge at the time has revealed. Air Marshal Edward Stringer, who retired from the armed forces in August, said the “sophisticated” hack – discovered last March – prompted ...

  • New Flagpro malware linked to Chinese state-backed hackers

    December 28, 2021

    BlackTech cyber-espionage APT (advanced persistent threat) group has been spotted targeting Japanese companies using novel malware that researchers call ‘Flagpro’. The threat actor uses Flagpro in the initial stage of an attack for network reconnaissance, to evaluate the target’s environment, and to download second-stage malware and execute it. The infection chain begins with a phishing email crafted ...