China’s potential hacker puts countries in a complicated situation – 02/23/2024 – Igor Patrick

Every major nation undertakes hacking efforts, whether to sustain its intelligence services, to gain commercial advantage, or to steal data from key individuals in its interests.

North Korea, for example, frequently engages in so-called ransomware (data kidnapping) in exchange for paying a ransom to help finance its operations. Russia has already shown itself capable of shutting down entire hydroelectric power plants in Ukraine, while the United States used the Stuxnet virus to destroy nuclear facilities in Iran.

This week, we had an indication of China’s power in this area. Files from a Chinese security company called I-Soon began circulating online. At first, no one paid much attention, until multiple cybersecurity experts began to confirm the veracity of the data. And what did they reveal? An overt campaign, financed by Chinese state money, to hack everything — from a police security system in Vietnam to government departments in India, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and Japan.

I-Soon hackers would be able to break into X profiles, remotely connect to Windows computers, exploit iOS and Android flaws to scrape contacts, media files, audio recordings, GPS data, WhatsApp messages, WeChat, Telegram and others.

The scope of the company’s activities is so broad that experts predict months until all the loopholes they exploited in these systems are corrected — and there is no guarantee that by then, they will not have found even more creative ways to circumvent security.

The leak also showed that the company, although private, maintained a close relationship with China’s Ministry of Public Security, which made frequent payments in exchange for monitoring Chinese citizens abroad. I-Soon also provided services to bodies such as the People’s Liberation Army — the Chinese Armed Forces — and the National Police, in addition to several provincial governments. As state money decreased, probably due to economic slowdown, corruption and competition, the company used the same criminally obtained data to steal and extort targets around the world.

The revelation inspires extra care by governments around the world. China’s cyber capabilities are public knowledge, on a scale of 50 Chinese hackers for every cybersecurity agent officially employed by the FBI, according to estimates by the American agency itself.

Last year, Microsoft had also sounded the alarm after detecting intrusions by Volt Typhoon, a group of Chinese hackers financed by the regime, into personal communications of American ambassadors and secretaries. The surprise brought by I-Soon’s revelations is the scale. If all the leaked data is correct — and there is no reason to doubt that so far — there is very little that they cannot hack.

This also puts developing countries in a tricky corner. The US has been arguing for years that companies like Chinese companies ZTE and Huawei could expose data from partner governments to risks, citing the alleged existence of backdoors — a type of secret door that allows unauthorized access — in 5G systems.

However, behind as they are in critical infrastructure, the Americans have never been able to present viable alternatives. On the contrary, they preferred to focus on offering options from European and Japanese companies, which are more expensive, backward and, in general, uncompetitive.

At risk of falling behind in the digital revolution, there is not much that poorer nations can do other than opt for Chinese partners, despite potential risks.

For our own sake, we better start paying attention to this kind of thing. In Brazil, we have already had to deal with American industrial and political espionage — who doesn’t remember the wiretaps revealed by Edward Snowden against former president Dilma Rousseff? — and Abin needs to hurry up if it wants to contain these new global players. Ignoring the problem means placing valuable assets at the mercy of foreigners: from Petrobras’ investment plans to Embraer’s intellectual property, for example.

In times of cyber warfare, investing in extra protections for our systems will need to be a national priority.

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