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US agency mounted ‘thousands of cyberattacks’ on Chinese university: report
- Report says NSA-affiliated hackers targeted personal data at China’s Northwestern Polytechnical University
- Cyberattack exposed ‘technical loopholes, many operating errors’, investigators say
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A cyberattack launched by the US National Security Agency (NSA) against a leading Chinese university for military research was aimed at stealing the personal data of people with sensitive identities, according to an investigation cited by Chinese state media.
The investigation by China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Centre and a Chinese internet security company uncovered the technical characteristics, tools and methods of the attacks it said were conducted by Computer Network Operations (CNO), a cyber warfare intelligence-gathering unit of the NSA.
Thirteen hackers involved in the cyberattacks on Northwestern Polytechnical University in China’s Shaanxi province were also identified, the report released on Tuesday said.
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The university is funded by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and frequently collaborates with Beijing on national security projects, including fighter jet development.
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Why China is tightening control over cybersecurity
Why China is tightening control over cybersecurity
According to the report, CNO used proxy servers in Japan, Germany and South Korea as springboards to illegally infiltrate the university’s operation and maintenance network.
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The office carried out “thousands” of cyberattacks on the university over time, controlled multiple critical servers, and stolen core data by using sophisticated malware, according to the report.
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