Chinese Hacking Group Allegedly Targeting Governments Across Asia To Gather Geopolitical Intelligence: Claims Engadget
Mumbai: A Chinese Hacking Group, Naikon has been found accountable in carrying out espionage across Asia Governments to gather Geopolitical Intelligence, as per the claims of Engadget, a renowned Blog Network.
Naikon at present has attacked governments over Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, and Brunei.
The Ministry of foreign affairs, science, and technology are their main focus of target.
“What drives them is their desire to gather intelligence and spy on countries, and they have spent the past five years quietly developing their skills and introducing a new cyber-weapon with the Aria-body backdoor,” said Lotem Finkelstein, manager of threat intelligence at Check Point.
News released by the Security firm Checkpoint further read, “The primary attack vector is our old friend, phishing. First Naikon presents an official-looking email with information of interest to potential targets, obtain via public or stolen information. Should the hapless victim open the e-mail attachment, it is spiked with a sophisticated piece of backdoor malware called ‘Aria-body’. That gives the attacker access to the target’s networks, and from there they attempt to access other parts of the infrastructure to gain wider access and launch new attacks.”
“Naikon’s primary method of attack is to infiltrate a government body, then use that body’s contacts, documents and data to launch attacks on others exploiting the trust and diplomatic relations between departments and governments to increase the chances of its attack succeeding,” it said.
The Checkpoint has further warned, “ we have published this as a warning and resource for any government entity to better spot Nikons or other hacking group activities.”
Chinese based Naikon is a hacking group found to be unseen after 2015. However, it is seen to be profoundly active throughout 2019-20.
(With Agency Inputs)
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