Security News
United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning eight Chinese apps considered to be a threat to US national security, economy, and foreign policy. Moving to ban the apps is designed to secure the country's information and communications technology, as well as the services supply chain which is considered a national emergency according to Executive Order 13873, signed on May 15, 2019.
Security researchers investigating a set of ransomware incidents at multiple companies discovered malware indicating that the attacks may be the work of a hacker group believed to operate on behalf of China. Although the attacks lack the sophistication normally seen with advanced threat actors, there is strong evidence linking them to APT27, a group normally involved in cyber espionage campaigns, also known as TG-3390, Emissary Panda, BRONZE UNION, Iron Tiger, and LuckyMouse.
China's spies "Were actively using that for counterintelligence and offensive intelligence. The capability was there and was being utilized." China had also stepped up its hacking efforts targeting biometric and passenger data from transit hubs. To be sure, China had stolen plenty of data before discovering how deeply infiltrated it was by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday accused U.S. universities of caving to Chinese pressure to blunt or bar criticism of the Chinese Communist Party. Pompeo took aim at universities across the U.S., claiming they refused to address the Trump administration's concerns about China's attempts to influence students and academics.
China poses the greatest threat to America and the rest of the free world since World War II, outgoing National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe said Thursday as the Trump administration ramps up anti-Chinese rhetoric to pressure President-elect Joe Biden to be tough on Beijing. "It offered nothing new but repeated the lies and rumors aimed at smearing China and playing up the China threat by any means," Hua said at a daily briefing on Friday.
Two popular Android apps from Chinese tech giant Baidu were temporarily unavailable on the Google Play Store in October after they were caught collecting sensitive user details. The two apps in question-Baidu Maps and Baidu Search Box-were found to collect device identifiers, such as the International Mobile Subscriber Identity number or MAC address, without users' knowledge, thus making them potentially trackable online.
UPDATED Infosec researchers at Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 threat intelligence unit spotted a pair of prominent Chinese apps leaking personal data, and after it informed Google the ad giant dumped the apps from its Play store. Baidu says the personal information was only used to enable push functionality and that the privacy agreement in its apps disclosed that use.
State-sponsored programs from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea pose the greatest high-tech threats to Canada, a report from the nation's authority on cyber security warned Wednesday. "The number of cyber threat actors is rising, and they are becoming more sophisticated", the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security said.
Broadcom's security subsidiary Symantec has named a China-linked hacking gang known as "APT 10" and "Cicada" as the probable source of a year-long attack on Japanese interests around the world. Symantec's analysis of the campaign detailed how APT 10 used custom malware named Backdoor.
Through most of 2020 bans on Chinese apps have meant geopolitical strife, but China yesterday revealed it has started banning some of its own apps. A ban on 34 apps was among the nuggets of news revealed, with their banishment from local app stores the result of a departmental trawl of 320,000 apps offered in local download-marts.