Beijing: A significant data leak examined by experts this week exposed that a Chinese digital security company was capable of hacking personal computers, breaking into social media accounts, and breaching foreign governments.
Cybersecurity companies SentinelLabs and Malwarebytes have discovered that I-Soon, a private company that bid on government contracts in China, had a massive document dump that revealed its hackers had hacked over a dozen governments.
According to a blog post published on Wednesday by SentinelLabs researchers, I-Soon also gained access to universities, the NATO military alliance, and “democracy organizations” in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous part of China.
An unidentified person published the compromised data last week on the internet software repository GitHub. AFP was unable to promptly confirm the nature of the leak.
SentinelLabs experts stated, “The leak includes some of the most specific information seen public to date, exposing the developing nature of China’s cyber espionage ecosystem.” In addition to other countries, Malwarebytes reported in a second article on Wednesday that I-Soon was able to compromise government buildings in South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and India.
Although an online archive screenshot of I-Soon’s website from Tuesday indicates that the company is situated in Shanghai and has subsidiaries as well as offices in Beijing, Sichuan, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, it was unavailable on Thursday morning. An inquiry for comment was not answered by the company.
When AFP asked China’s foreign ministry on Thursday if Beijing had hired hackers, the ministry said that it was “not aware” of the situation. Spokesman Mao Ning stated, “As a principle, China resolutely condemns all forms of hacking and cracks down on them according to with law.”
