New Chinese Intelligence Unit Linked to Massive Cyber Spying Program

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Free Beacon:

A Chinese intelligence unit carried out a massive cyber espionage program that stole vast quantities of data from governments, businesses and other organizations, security analysts who uncovered the operation said Thursday.

 

The activities of the Chinese unit called the Axiom group began at least six years ago and were uncovered by a coalition of security firms this month.

 

Cyber sleuths traced Axiom attacks to the 2009 cyber operation against Google in China and other U.S. companies known as Operation Aurora. The group was also linked to a Chinese hacking program that targeted dissidents and opposition groups known as GhostNet. More recent Axiom attacks took place against Japan, the U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars, and U.S. think tanks.

 

In the past two weeks, 43,000 computer networks at nearly 1,000 organizations were cleaned of multiple types of cyber espionage spyware from Axiom cyber spies, including 180 highly sophisticated computer penetrations at key Chinese targets that employed a program called Hikit that specializes in automated data theft.