SOURCE: ZEE NEWS
Indian security agencies are concerned over the latest development in which the United States Department of Justice has said that five Chinese hackers who charged were involved to target the Indian government networks and comprised of foreign government computer networks.
The US government alleged that the hackers targeted “over 100 victim companies in the United States and abroad, including software development companies, computer hardware manufacturers, telecommunications providers, social media companies, video game companies, non-profit organizations, universities, think tanks, and foreign governments, as well as pro-democracy politicians and activists in Hong Kong.
The Justice Department investigation once again highlights how the Chinese hackers systemically conspiring to hack Indian computer networks including other countries.
“There is an urgent need for Indian law enforcement agencies to investigate the leads and file prosecution against Chinese and North Korean hackers.” said a senior security official deployed in Indian Security establishment to Zee Media.
“In about 2019, the conspirators compromised government of India websites, as well as virtual private networks and database servers supporting the government of India. The conspirators used VPS PROVIDER servers to connect to an Open VPN the network owned by the government of India,” the indictment said.
The conspirators had installed “Cobalt strike” malware on Indian government-protected computers, it added.
As per the investigation, security researchers have tracked using the threat labels “APT41,” “Barium,” “Winnti,” “Wicked Panda,” and “Wicked Spider,” facilitated the theft of source code, software code signing certificates, customer account data, and valuable business information, says the Department of Justice (DOJ). These intrusions also facilitated the defendants’ other criminal schemes, including ransomware and “crypto-jacking” schemes, the latter of which refers to the group’s unauthorized use of victim computers to “mine” cryptocurrency.
