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The Chinese market is no doubt a pot of gold for big technology giants with over 700 million internet users, but the Chinese government heavily controls the Internet within its borders through its Golden Shield project – the Great Firewall of China . The Great Firewall has blocked some 171 out of the world's leading websites, including Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Dropbox, and The Pirate Bay in the country. But tech giants like Facebook and Google always try alternative ways to infiltrate the market. Now it seems like Facebook is trying to secretly enter the largest populous market by releasing an all new social networking app in China that does not carry its brand. Dubbed Colorful Balloons , the photo-sharing app appears to mimic the look and feel of Facebook's Moments, an app that allows its users to share photos with their friends and family members. According to The New York Times, Facebook approved the release of Colorful Balloons back in M

The US Department of Justice on Thursday charged two Chinese hackers associated with the Chinese government for hacking numerous companies and government agencies in a dozen countries. The Chinese nationals, Zhu Hua (known online as Afwar, CVNX, Alayos and Godkiller) and Zhang Shilong (known online as Baobeilong, Zhang Jianguo and Atreexp), are believed to be members of a state-sponsored hacking group known as Advanced Persistent Threat 10 ( APT 10 ) or Cloudhopper that has been working from over a decade to steal business and technology secrets from companies and government agencies around the world. According to the indictment , the alleged hackers targeted more than 45 companies and government agencies from 2006 to 2018 and stole "hundreds of gigabytes" of sensitive data and personal information from its targets. Both Hua and Shilong worked for Huaying Haitai Science and Technology Development Company and are alleged to have committed these crimes at the directio

The introduction of Open AI's ChatGPT was a defining moment for the software industry, touching off a GenAI race with its November 2022 release. SaaS vendors are now rushing to upgrade tools with enhanced productivity capabilities that are driven by generative AI. Among a wide range of uses, GenAI tools make it easier for developers to build software, assist sales teams in mundane email writing, help marketers produce unique content at low cost, and enable teams and creatives to brainstorm new ideas.  Recent significant GenAI product launches include Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Salesforce Einstein GPT. Notably, these GenAI tools from leading SaaS providers are paid enhancements, a clear sign that no SaaS provider will want to miss out on cashing in on the GenAI transformation. Google will soon launch its SGE "Search Generative Experience" platform for premium AI-generated summaries rather than a list of websites.  At this pace, it's just a matter of a short time befo

Two China-linked advanced persistent threat (APT) groups have been observed targeting entities and member countries affiliated with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as part of a cyber espionage campaign over the past three months. This includes the threat actor known as  Mustang Panda , which has been recently linked to  cyber attacks against Myanmar  as well as other Asian countries with a variant of the PlugX (aka Korplug) backdoor dubbed  DOPLUGS . Mustang Panda, also called Camaro Dragon, Earth Preta, and Stately Taurus, is believed to have targeted entities in Myanmar, the Philippines, Japan and Singapore, targeting them with phishing emails designed to deliver two malware packages. "Threat actors created malware for these packages on March 4-5, 2024, coinciding with the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit (March 4-6, 2024)," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. One of the malware package is a ZIP file that contains

A suspected Chinese-nexus hacking group exploited a  recently disclosed zero-day flaw  in Barracuda Networks Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances to breach government, military, defense and aerospace, high-tech industry, and telecom sectors as part of a global espionage campaign. Mandiant, which is tracking the activity under the name  UNC4841 , described the threat actor as "highly responsive to defensive efforts" and capable of actively tweaking their modus operandi to maintain persistent access to targets. "UNC4841 deployed new and novel malware designed to maintain presence at a small subset of high priority targets that it compromised either before the patch was released, or shortly following Barracuda's remediation guidance," the Google-owned threat intelligence firm  said  in a new technical report published today. Almost a third of the identified affected organizations are government agencies. Interestingly enough, some of the earliest compromises

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a new advisory on Monday about a wave of cyberattacks carried by Chinese nation-state actors targeting US government agencies and private entities. "CISA has observed Chinese [Ministry of State Security]-affiliated cyber threat actors operating from the People's Republic of China using commercially available information sources and open-source exploitation tools to target US Government agency networks," the cybersecurity agency said. Over the past 12 months, the victims were identified through sources such as Shodan , the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure ( CVE ) database, and the National Vulnerabilities Database (NVD), exploiting the public release of a vulnerability to pick vulnerable targets and further their motives. By compromising legitimate websites and leveraging spear-phishing emails with malicious links pointing to attacker-owned sites in order to gain initial access, the Chinese

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has added Pacific Network Corp, along with its subsidiary ComNet (USA) LLC, and China Unicom (Americas) Operations Limited, to the list of communications equipment and services that have been deemed a threat to national security. The agency  said  the companies are subject to the Chinese government's exploitation, influence, and control, and could be forced to comply with requests for intercepting and misrouting communications, without the ability to challenge such requests. The Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau further noted that equipment and services from ComNet and China Unicom could present an opportunity for the Chinese government to carry out espionage operations and gather intelligence against the U.S. Alternatively, they could also provide the Chinese government with a strategic capability to "target, collect, alter, block, and reroute network traffic." China Unicom also earned a place on the list fo

An FBI electronics technician has pleaded guilty to acting as a Chinese secret agent and passing along sensitive information about the Feds to a Chinese government official. Kun Shan "Joey" Chun , 46, admitted in federal court in Manhattan on Monday that he violated his security clearance on several occasions between 2011 and 2016 in an effort to pass on secret information to China in exchange for money. Chun is a 19-year FBI veteran from Brooklyn who was born in China but was employed by the FBI in 1997. His duties with the FBI included " accessing sensitive and, in some instance, classified information ." The g-man, as a double agent, sent confidential government information – including the identity and travel plans of an FBI special agent, the internal structure of the FBI and spying technology used by the Bureau – to a Chinese official. Chun, who was initially arrested in March, got a top secret security clearance in 1998, at the time he did not reveal h

A Philippine Hacker group claiming ties with the hacktivist collective Anonymous defaced early Monday several Chinese Government websites. " Anonymous Philippines " claimed responsibility for defacing more than 200 Chinese websites in retaliation for Beijing's aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea, according to the messages posted on their Facebook page . " The operation was a success, we might not have brought China to it's knees but we gave hope to our brothers and sisters, because hope is what we need right now. Hope that someday people will stand-up and fight back! " Anonymous Philippines said. At the time of writing, More than 145 Chinese Government ( list 1 ) and 45 Commercial websites ( list 2 ) were displaying the following defacement message: " China's alleged claim on maritime territories and oppressive poaching can no longer be tolerated. Stand against Oppression! It's time to fight back! Say NO to China'

German authorities said they have issued arrest warrants against three citizens on suspicion of spying for China. The full names of the defendants were not disclosed by the Office of the Federal Prosecutor (aka Generalbundesanwalt), but it includes Herwig F., Ina F., and Thomas R. "The suspects are strongly suspected of working for a Chinese secret service since an unspecified date before June 2022," the Generalbundesanwalt  said . Thomas R. is believed to have acted as an agent for China's Ministry of State Security (MSS), gathering information about innovative technologies in Germany that could be used for military purposes. The defendant also sought the help of a married couple, Herwig F. and Ina F., who run a Düsseldorf-based business that established connections with the scientific and research community in Germany. This materialized in the form of an agreement with an unnamed German university to conduct a study for an unnamed Chinese contractor regarding the

CHINESE blogger and activist Michael Anti wants to know why he is less worthy of a Facebook account than company founder Mark Zuckerberg's dog. Anti, a popular online commentator whose legal name is Zhao Jing, said his Facebook account had been suddenly cancelled in January. Company officials told him by e-mail that Facebook had a strict policy against pseudonyms and that he must use the name issued on his government ID. Anti said his professional identity as Michael Anti has been established for more than a decade, with published articles and essays. Anti, a former journalist who has won fellowships at both Cambridge University and Harvard University, said he set up his Facebook account in 2007. By locking him out of his account, Facebook had cut him off from a network of more than 1,000 academic and professional contacts who knew him as Anti, he said. "I'm really, really angry. I can't function using my Chinese name. Today, I found out that Zuckerberg's

From past few days, Internet Users in China are dealing with a weird redirection of traffic nationwide while accessing any website that makes use of connect.facebook.net resource. Great Firewall of China , which is infamous for the Internet censorship by Chinese government, believes to be intercepting the JavaScript module used by Facebook Connect Login, which is meant to allow third-party websites to authorize users through Facebook infrastructure. Chinese Internet users are complaining that when they visit any website that contain " Login with Facebook " or " Connect with Facebook " buttons (which is being used by a vast number of sites), they automatically redirect to unrelated websites. The two websites to which the traffic is being redirected: wpkg.org — A website for open source automated software deployment, upgrade, and removal program for Windows. ptraveler.com — A personal travel blog authored by a young couple of Poland. "Th

Image Source: South China Morning Post Chinese authorities have announced the arrest of around 22 distributors working as Apple distributors as part of a $7 million operation, who stole customers' personal information from an internal Apple database and illegally sold it to Chinese black market vendors. According to a report from Chinese media , this underground network reportedly consisted of employees working in direct Apple suppliers, and other outsource firms in the Zhejiang, a province in eastern China. These employees had access to Apple databases along with other tools containing sensitive information about its customers. They allegedly used their company's internal computer system to gather data includes usernames, email addresses, phone numbers, and Apple IDs, and then sold it in the underground market for between 10 yuan ($1.47) and 80 yuan ($11.78) per data point. So far, the network has made a total of 50 million yuan (around $7.36 million). However, it is

US Chamber Of Commerce Hit by Chinese Hackers A group of hackers in China breached the computer defenses of America's top business-lobbying group and gained access to everything stored on its systems, including information about its three million members. The hackers may have broken into the Chamber's network more than a year before they were discovered. It is not confirm when the initial break-in occurred but security officials from the Chamber quietly shut the breech down in May of 2010. " What was unusual about it was that this was clearly somebody very sophisticated, who knew exactly who we are and who targeted specific people and used sophisticated tools to try to gather intelligence, " the Chamber's chief operating officer David Chavern told the Journal in an interview published today. It isn't clear how much of the compromised data was viewed by the hackers.Chamber officials said the hackers had focused on four Chamber employees who worked on Asia poli

Anonymous hacks 500  Chinese websites Messages by the international hacking group Anonymous went up on a number of Chinese government websites on Thursday to protest internet restrictions. " Dear Chinese Government, you are not infallible, today websites are hacked, tomorrow it will be your vile regime that will fall, " the message read in English. " So expect us because we do not forgive, never. What you are doing today to your Great People, tomorrow will be inflicted to you. With no mercy. Nothing will stop us, nor your anger nor your weapons. You do not scare us, because you cannot afraid an idea. " Some of the messages were directed at the Chinese people while others addressed the government. Some websites that Anonymous said it attacked were working Thursday, and government officials denied the sites were ever hacked. China's National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team was not available for immediate comment. The hacks were announced on

Telecommunication providers in the Middle East are the subject of new cyber attacks that commenced in the first quarter of 2023. The intrusion set has been attributed to a Chinese cyber espionage actor associated with a long-running campaign dubbed  Operation Soft Cell  based on tooling overlaps. "The initial attack phase involves infiltrating Internet-facing Microsoft Exchange servers to deploy web shells used for command execution," researchers from SentinelOne and QGroup said in a  new technical report  shared with The Hacker News. "Once a foothold is established, the attackers conduct a variety of reconnaissance, credential theft, lateral movement, and data exfiltration activities." Operation Soft Cell, according to  Cybereason , refers to malicious activities undertaken by China-affiliated actors targeting telecommunications providers since at least 2012. The Soft Cell threat actor, also tracked by Microsoft as  Gallium , is known to target unpatched int

The United States Department of Justice today announced charges against 4 Chinese military hackers who were allegedly behind the Equifax data breach that exposed the personal and financial data of nearly 150 million Americans. In a joint press conference held today with the Attorney General William Barr and FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich, the DoJ officials labeled the state-sponsored hacking campaign as the largest hacking case ever uncovered of this type. The four accused, Wu Zhiyong (吴志勇), Wang Qian (王乾), Xu Ke (许可) and Liu Lei (刘磊), have also been indicted for their involvement in hacking and stealing trade secrets, intellectual property and confidential information from several other U.S. businesses in recent years. In September 2017, credit reporting agency Equifax disclosed it had become a victim of a massive cyberattack that left highly sensitive data of nearly half of the U.S. population in the hands of hackers. As The Hacker News reported earlier, hackers compr

A virus specialized for AutoCAD , a perfect cyber espionage tool In recent years we are assisting to a profoundly change in the nature of malware, it is increased the development for spy purposes, for its spread in both private and government sectors. The recent case of Flame malware has demonstrated the efficiency of a malicious agent as a gathering tool in a typical context of state-sponsored attack for cyber espionage. Event like this represent the tip of the iceberg, every day millions of malware instances infect pc in every place in the world causing serious damages related to the leak of sensible information. Specific viruses are developed to address particular sectors and information, that is the case for example of "ACAD/Medre.A", a malware specialized in the theft of AutoCAD files. The virus has been developed to steal blueprints from private companies mostly based in Peru according the expert of the security firm ESET. The virus is able to locate AutoCAD file on infected ma

Canonical, the software company that manages and funds Ubuntu, announced to develop a new, open-source operating system customized especially for Chinese users called ' UbuntuKylin OS '. According to the BBC, Chinese government and Canonical partner to launch its home grown operating system. China signaled its intention to move away from its dependence on western software products i.e windows. Canonical staff and Chinese researchers will be working on the OS at a Beijing lab. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will collaborate with Canonical to come up with Kylin to run on servers, aimed at websites, online shops, and hosting. The first version of Ubuntu Kylin is for the laptops and desktops. Therefore the Android dominates the Chinese market for a few more years. The Ubuntu Kylin is not for the mobile device because Canonical already has the Ubuntu Mobile OS. Future releases will also include integration with Baidu maps and shoppi