How Chinese Hackers Can Steal Infos from PH Government and Private Websites

Manila | China will try to steal anything when they can. Private and public Internet users big and small are warned about Chinese hacking group “Naikon” who has been operating illegal online activities allegedly behind the Chinese government.

Russian computer security firm Kaspersky Labs said in their latest cybersecurity bulletin that a Chinese-speaking hacker group called “Naikon” had successfully infiltrated governments around the South China Sea region including the Philippines.

Naikon had been conducting “at least five years of high volume, high profile, geopolitical attack activity” and had a “high success rate in infiltrating national organizations in Asean countries,” Kaspersky said.

“In the spring of 2014, we noticed an increase in the volume of attack activity by the Naikon [group]. The attackers appeared to be Chinese-speaking and targeted mainly top-level government agencies and civil and military organizations in countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore, Nepal, Thailand, Laos and China,” Kaspersky said in their security bulletin posted on securelist.com.

“An attack typically starts with an email carrying an attachment that contains information of interest to the potential victim. The document may be based on information from open sources or on proprietary information stolen from other compromised systems,” Kaspersky principal security researcher Kurt Baumgartner said in the bulletin.

Once the victim opens the attachment, a spy program will be installed on victim’s computer automatically without his knowledge. Hackers can access the victim’s computer without his knowing, the report said.

Kaspersky revealed that the hackers are targeting a specific country but did not further elaborate which country in South East Asia is on the hot seat.

“A few of these organizations were key targets and under continuous, real-time monitoring,” Baumgartner said.

• Office of the President
• Military Forces
• Office of the Cabinet Secretary
• National Security Council
• Office of the Solicitor General
• Intelligence Services
• Civil Aviation Authority
• Department of Justice
• Federal Police
• Executive/Presidential Administration and Management Staff

The Philippine government earlier has assured the public that government websites are safe but did not rule out the possibility of security breach.

The American government, especially the CIA and FBI have been monitoring the said hacker group for a while now as many instances of security breach has been reported already in US government websites.

/Michaela Montes/ Assisted Press

Source: Inquirer

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