Cyber Espionage

Cyber security has been a major concern. Cyber espionage is now becoming more sophisticated and widespread both on the international and domestic stages. Hackers, especially those backed by the Chinese government, are making all efforts to breach top global telecom firms.

Cyber espionage is a form of cyberattack that steals sensitive data or intellectual property to gain an advantage over a competitive company or government entity. The cyber-espionage campaign lasts at least two years. The campaign’s success shows how dangerous software faults can be, even years after they’ve been identified and made public.

As per US Cyber Advisory, there is a very large size of espionage attack by the Chinese government-backed hackers who have broken into a number of major telecom businesses throughout the world by exploiting known software flaws in routers and other popular networking gear.

The Chinese hackers allegedly exploited networking devices from key vendors such as Cisco, Citrix, Zyxel, QNAP, DrayTek, MikroTik, D-Link, and Netgear in the recently disclosed cyber assault.

The US officials said that the hackers utilised the stolen devices to acquire full access to the network traffic of several private companies and government agencies once they had a foothold within their targets. However, the advisory did not list the identities of persons who were impacted by the campaign, nor did it describe the campaign’s impact. But the US authorities did point out the specific networking devices, such as routers and switches, that Chinese hackers are suspected of routinely targeting, exploiting severe and well-known flaws that basically gave the attackers free reign over their targets.

All of the flaws were in public knowledge, including a five-year-old severe hole in Netgear routers that let attackers circumvent authentication checks and execute any code they want, giving them complete control of the device and unrestricted access to the victim’s network.

It was also stated that the hackers successfully exfiltrated the targeted network’s traffic and copied it to their own machines by stealing usernames and passwords, reconfiguring routers, and stealing usernames and passwords. They were able to spy on nearly everything going on inside the businesses using these approaches. Sources said that since the individuals’ devices weren’t directly targeted, they may never be aware of the surveillance.

Zero-day attacks or hacks that make use of previously discovered flaws, are powerful and draw a lot of attention. However, the known defects remain dangerous because updating and securing networks and devices can be challenging with limited resources, employees, and funds.