Security News

Things are getting back to normal: Chinese hackers revert to bugging Tibetans after brief Euro campaign
2020-09-02 11:30

Malware pathologists have noted a return to "Business as usual" as groups associated with Chinese state interests turned their attentions back to Tibetan matters after a European dalliance earlier this year. Back in March, a phishing campaign attempted to deliver the "Sepulcher" malware to various European institutions with a sender email identified as being linked to historical Chinese APT targeting of the Tibetan community, Proofpoint said.

Chinese Researcher Arrested for Destroying Evidence of Data Transfer to China
2020-08-31 17:35

A Chinese national was arrested in the United States for destroying evidence of possible transfer of sensitive data to China. The man, Guan Lei, 29, was a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, and was staying in the U.S. on a J-1 non-immigrant visa.

Chinese Researchers Show How They Remotely Hacked a Mercedes-Benz
2020-08-07 19:11

A team of Chinese researchers has described the analysis process that resulted in the discovery of 19 vulnerabilities in a Mercedes-Benz E-Class, including flaws that can be exploited to remotely hack a car. The researchers conducted their analysis on a real Mercedes-Benz E-Class and demonstrated how a hacker could have remotely unlocked the car's doors and started its engine.

TikTok and WeChat: Chinese Apps Dogged by Security Fears
2020-08-07 18:38

The United States has fired a new salvo in its rivalry with China, ordering sweeping restrictions against Chinese-owned social media stars TikTok and WeChat. It belongs to Chinese tech firm ByteDance and targets the international market while Douyin, a domestic version of the platform, caters exclusively to Chinese users.

Trump Bans Dealings With Chinese Owners of TikTok, WeChat
2020-08-07 13:06

President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered a sweeping but unspecified ban on dealings with the Chinese owners of consumer apps TikTok and WeChat, although it remains unclear if he has the legal authority to actually ban the apps from the U.S. The twin executive orders - one for each app - take effect in 45 days. The administration has provided no specific evidence that TikTok has made U.S. users' data available to the Chinese government.

USA decides to cleanse local networks of anything Chinese under new five-point national data security plan
2020-08-06 03:31

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has announced a "Clean Network plan" he says offers a "Comprehensive approach to guarding our citizens' privacy and our companies' most sensitive information from aggressive intrusions by malign actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party." Clean Carrier: To ensure untrusted People's Republic of China carriers are not connected with US telecommunications networks.

US Talks Tougher on Chinese Tech, But Offers Few Specifics
2020-08-06 01:39

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday called for a big expansion of U.S. government curbs on Chinese technology, saying that it wants to see "Untrusted Chinese apps" pulled from the Google and Apple app stores. Pompeo called out popular video app TikTok and the messaging app WeChat, which people in the U.S. use to communicate with others in the U.S. and China, as "Significant threats to the personal data of American citizens, not to mention tools for CCP content censorship." CCP refers to the Chinese Communist Party.

Black Hat 2020: Linux Spyware Stack Ties Together 5 Chinese APTs
2020-08-05 22:32

A stack of Linux backdoor malware used for espionage, compiled dynamically and customizable to specific targets, is being used as a shared resource by five different Chinese-language APT groups, according to researchers. Finally, the sixth item is the Linux XOR DDoS botnet, which is the largest known Linux botnet, first coming to notice in 2015.

Chinese debt collectors jailed for cyberbullying under ‘soft violence’ laws
2020-08-05 02:31

In 1965, Gordon Moore published a short informal paper, Cramming more components onto integrated circuits. Based on not much more but these few data points and his knowledge of silicon chip development - he was head of R&D at Fairchild Semiconductors, the company that was to seed Silicon Valley - he said that for the next decade, component counts by area could double every year.

U.S. Attributes Taidoor Malware to Chinese Government Hackers
2020-08-04 14:11

A malware analysis report published on Monday by the U.S. Department of Defense, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the FBI officially attributes a piece of malware named Taidoor to threat actors sponsored by the Chinese government. In 2013, FireEye published a report on Taidoor being used in cyber espionage campaigns aimed at government agencies, think tanks and companies, particularly ones with an interest in Taiwan.