China · United Kingdom · Google · The Guardian Technology
This year, Google announced it had disrupted a “residential proxy” network where cybercrime groups and state actors used hacked
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Household and IT devices to launch attacks.
Key facts
- In one example, a Chinese business created a covert network by infecting 200,000 devices worldwide
- The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and agencies in nine other countries have warned of persistent attempts by Beijing-backed groups to hack equipment such as wifi routers to launch
- Richard Horne, the centre’s chief executive, said on Wednesday that China’s intelligence and military agencies had an “eye-watering level of sophistication in their cyber-operations
- The NCSC said the technique was used by most China-linked hackers
Summary
British businesses are being urged to step up their vigilance against a China-linked hacking ploy that uses everyday devices for espionage. The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and agencies in nine other countries have warned of persistent attempts by Beijing-backed groups to hack equipment such as wifi routers to launch cyber-attacks. Known as “covert networks” or “botnets”, they typically target vulnerable equipment, for instance devices that have not had a software update or are old, as a base for staging activities such as surveillance and data theft. The NCSC said the technique was used by most China-linked hackers. The advisory notice from the NCSC and cyber-agencies in countries including the US, Australia, Canada and Germany warns there has been a “major shift” in Chinese tactics to using devices linked to the internet as a means of obscuring where an attack comes from.