The United States, in a joint statement with the European Union, NATO, the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan, on Monday accused China of carrying out a series of sophisticated cyber attacks to extort money from companies through data hijacking, but also to steal information and put basic infrastructures and even laboratories with lethal viruses at risk.
It is the
largest conviction to date
against this type of criminal practices carried out by the Chinese government, according to official US sources, and the first since the president, Joe Biden, promised in June to unite the allies of the United States to denounce them.
[Russian 'hackers' demand $ 70 million after unprecedented attack on hundreds of companies]
The conviction largely refers to the
discovery and criminal exploitation of a bug in Microsoft's Exchange software
this year, a US official said in a call with reporters.
Cybersecurity experts from the government and the private sector quickly identified the hackers as possible members of China's Ministry of State Security (MSS), who used the ruling in January to cyber-attack companies, apparently as part of conventional spy operations. Chinese.
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"The compromise and exploitation of the Microsoft Exchange server
undermined the security and integrity of thousands of computers
and networks around the world," the European Council said in a statement published Monday.
"This irresponsible and harmful behavior caused security risks and significant economic losses for our governmental institutions and private companies, and has shown important indirect and systemic effects for our security, economy and society in general," he stressed.
[A chain cyber attack hits 200 companies in the United States]
Other hackers who the United States believes are linked to China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) subsequently launched
ransomware
- data hijacking -
attacks
using the flaw to extort money from companies and try to obtain millions of dollars.
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For now
, the extent of the
ransomware's
success is unknown
, or whether the
hackers
working for the MSS carried them out directly or relied on other cybercriminals.
"In some cases, we know that cyber operators affiliated with the Government of the People's Republic of China have carried out
ransomware
operations
against private companies that have included ransom requests of millions of dollars," said the aforementioned US source.
Microsoft's corporate vice president for security, Tom Burt,
praised
the joint statements by the United States and its allies in an email as "they will help the international community to ensure that
those behind the indiscriminate attacks are held accountable."
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The Justice Department simultaneously charged four people with allegedly working for Chinese intelligence services of hacking companies in order to steal intellectual property and confidential information, and then sharing that information with Chinese companies.
These criminals also attacked basic infrastructure in the United States, and even research laboratories with deadly viruses such as Ebola.
The National Security Agency (NSA), the FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency also released an extensive whitepaper for cybersecurity workers on how to defend against China-sponsored attacks.
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The Biden government is
under pressure to curb attacks by
ransomware
, a criminal tactic that locks a victim's computer, demanding money in exchange for a promise to fix it and not leak sensitive files.
It is believed that most
hackers
of
ransomware
most prolific operate in Russia and its orbit, which has led the president to promise that the
United States
take direct action against them
if Russian President Vladimir Putin, does not intervene.
Although some groups of
ransomware
have disappeared, it is not clear if the actions of the White House have had any effect.
The cyberattack on Microsoft Exchange led to
a high-level spy campaign
, which quickly sparked several
ransomware
attacks
.
[Biden demands Putin over the phone to act against 'hackers' and threatens to take action to defend US interests]
Government-sponsored
hacking
groups
typically reserve the discovery of key software vulnerabilities, but other
hackers
in this case quickly began exploiting the flaw, leading to speculation as to who made it public.
Soon after, it was used to deploy
ransomware
attacks
.
It is unknown how many organizations were attacked or if any of the
ransomware
attacks were
successful.
But among the multiple attacks recorded, at least
one of them was against a US target
, the official said.
"This surprised us and, in fact, one of the reasons we have worked so hard on this attribution is because it really gave us a new insight into the work of the MSS and the kind of aggressive behavior that we are seeing coming out of China," he said. the American source.
With information from NBC, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
