DOJ, NASA, Others Among Victims of Chinese State-Sponsored Hack
The Department of Justice (DOJ), the U.S. Senate, the Federal Reserve, NASA, and other federal entities were targeted by a Chinese state-sponsored actor.
The DOJ announced court-authorized domain seizures of hacking platforms “QScan” and “QTRouter,” blocking the access of malicious actors following reported targeting of U.S. critical infrastructure.
“State-sponsored malicious hackers preying on America’s critical infrastructure will be stopped and prosecuted. We are here to ensure security for the American people and will use every tool we have to keep that promise,” Attorney General Todd Blanche statted. “Federal law enforcement investigated and disabled the PRC’s malicious software, the latest in a series of technical operations to dismantle indiscriminate hacking activities sponsored by the People’s Republic of China.”
Other victims include:
- The Energy Department
- The Health and Human Services Department
- The National Institutes of Health
Monzy Merza, co-founder and CEO of Crogl, comments, “This news highlights the need for sophisticated defensive capabilities for less resourced organizations like hospitals and critical infrastructure. And it strengthens the argument for sovereign AI capabilities as organizations look to improve their security postures in the face of continually evolving advanced threats. It’s also cautionary for AI driven security vendors whose pricing models charge based on investigations.
“Security teams need to investigate more, hunt more, and need easy access to AI technologies for cyber defense. This article really showcases the asymmetry: the teams who are the most under resourced and have the biggest need are often the ones that have the hardest time getting access to AI resources.”
Former NSA hacker and current Faculty at IANS Research Jake Williams argues, “Nothing in this report is particularly surprising or even out of the norm: It's a dangerous and slippery slope to say things like ‘contractor working at the behest of the Chinese government.’ You could easily substitute ‘Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Company’ for ‘Lockheed Martin’ and make this a story about a U.S. company enabling hacking for the U.S. How would we react if the Chinese government seized a U.S. contractor domain? They don’t have that capability, but that’s only because the U.S. overall runs the Internet (nobody likes to admit that, but it really is the U.S.).
“Nation state threat actors need prepositioning to deliver cyber effects at the time of need. Extensive prepositioning, especially in security blind spots like IoT devices, should be expected as the new norm.”
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