A massive dump of files from a Chinese hacking group linked to the government in Beijing outlines a massive, state-backed effort to breach foreign government, corporate, military and infrastructure systems using holes in security from US companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft, the Washington Post reports.
The hacker who hacked the Chinese hacker group posted a trove of more than 550 records on the code-sharing platform Github (which likely made the executives at Discord wipe their corporate brow). Cybersecurity experts believe the files are authentic. “We rarely get such unfettered access to the inner workings of any intelligence operation,” said John Hultquist, chief analyst at Google-owned cybersecurity firm Mandiant Intelligence. “We have every reason to believe this is the authentic data of a contractor supporting global and domestic cyberespionage operations out of China.”
The data dump is not a re-broadcast of previously stolen information. Instead, the records contain logs, spreadsheets, and other documents laying out targets of iSoon, a Shanghai-based broker for hacked information that has links to Chinese military and intelligence operations. The logs show hackers were able to gain access to 95 gigabytes of immigration data from India and call logs from a South Korean cell phone provider.