Security News > 2020 > March > Researchers Claim CIA Was Behind 11-Year-Long Hacking Attacks Against China

Qihoo 360, one of the most prominent cybersecurity firms, today published a new report accusing the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to be behind an 11-year-long hacking campaign against several Chinese industries and government agencies.

The claims made by the company are based on the evidential connection between tools, tactics, and procedures used by a hacking group, dubbed 'APT-C-39' against Chinese industries, and the 'Vault 7' hacking tools developed by the CIA. As you may remember, the massive collection of Vault 7 hacking tools was leaked to the public in 2017 by the whistleblower website Wikileaks, which it received from Joshua Adam Schulte, a former CIA employee who is currently facing charges for leaking classified information.

According to Qihoo 360, the hacking tools developed by the CIA, such as Fluxwire and Grasshopper, were used by the APT-C-39 group against Chinese targets years before the Vault 7 leak.

The company also claimed that the hacking group also used some tools, such as WISTFULTOOL attacking plugin, developed by the National Security Agency in its hacking campaigns, including against a large Chinese Internet company in 2011.

Where Qihoo 360 is exclusively tracking Chinese targets, researchers at Kaspersky and Symantec are tracking CIA hacking operations as Lamberts and Longhorn, against other countries.

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