China refutes Microsoft allegations it hacked crucial US infrastructure
C
hina has denied allegations made by tech big Microsoft that Chinese state-sponsored hackers have been attempting to disrupt crucial communications infrastructure between the US and Asia.
On Wednesday, Microsoft issued a report accusing a Chinese nation-state hacking group referred to as “Volt Typhoon” of concentrating on crucial infrastructure within the US and Guam to hold out espionage and knowledge gathering.
In a video assertion launched on Twitter Thursday afternoon, Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs slammed Microsoft’s report, claiming that it’s “a patchwork with a broken chain of evidence” and “extremely unprofessional”.
She added that it was ironic that the report was launched collectively with statements from cybersecurity businesses within the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand — the opposite members apart from the US of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.
“As we all know, the Five Eyes alliance is the world’s biggest intelligence organisation, while the NSA is the world’s biggest hacking group,” mentioned Ms Mao.
“The involvement of certain companies this time shows that the US is exploring new channels of spreading disinformation besides government agencies.
“This is not the first time for them to do so and certainly not the last time too, however, whatever subterfuge it uses, this will not change the fact that the US is the biggest hacking empire in the world.”
Volt Typhoon’s hacking marketing campaign
On Wednesday, the NSA released an advisory offering technical particulars on simply how Volt Typhoon is spying on crucial infrastructure and what organisations ought to do to stop additional assaults.
The hacking group’s espionage and information-gathering efforts reportedly affected a number of authorities programs, in addition to networks in a number of industries like communications, IT, manufacturing, utility, transportation, building and maritime.
Microsoft mentioned that Volt Typhoon was utilizing a sort of hacking technique often called “living off the land”, the place the hackers had been sneakily utilizing community administation instruments to gather credentials from native and community programs, after which use them to log in and observe the networks.
The tech big added that the hacking group had been in a position to mix into regular community exercise by routing site visitors by compromised small workplace and residential workplace (SOHO) community gear, together with routers, firewalls, and VPN {hardware}.
UK organisations urged to take motion
On Wednesday night time, the National Cyber Security Centre issued advice for UK organisations on the Volt Typhoon hacking group.
“It is vital that operators of critical national infrastructure take action to prevent attackers hiding on their systems, as described in this joint advisory with our international partners,” mentioned NCSC Director of Operations Paul Chichester.
“We strongly encourage providers of UK essential services to follow our guidance to help detect this malicious activity and prevent persistent compromise.”
William Hutchison, the previous cybersecurity lead for the US Department of Defense (DoD) informed The Standard that the UK wants to enhance its cyber defences.
“There’s been a massive underinvestment in critical national infrastructure in the UK. Unfortunately, it’s not hard to compromise critical infrastructure and bring critical services to their knees,” mentioned Mr Hutchison, who can also be chief government of cybersecurity agency SimSpace.
He desires corporations and organisations to organize themselves by simulating an actual cyberattack scenario and assessing whether or not their present responses are sufficient.
Mr Hutchison added: “By utilising military-grade cybersecurity readiness solutions, such as cyber ranges, organisations can test their systems to failure in a high-fidelity, simulated environment, shifting the power away from hackers’ intent on exfiltrating sensitive data and damaging business-critical systems.”