China hacked metadata of more than 10 major carriers in the world?

Hackers have invaded the telecommunications system of more than 10 operators in the world and collected many important data.
US-Israel-based Cybereason Security Company has announced that hackers have infiltrated the system of at least 10 mobile operators around the world to steal user metadata. Although there is no source of verification, the company said the hacker group is related to Chinese factors, according to Forbes.

Cybereason did not name any particular network and customers affected. The company claims this attack is large and very sophisticated called “Operation Softcell”. The target is military officials and dissidents.

Chinese hackers are accused of carrying out many attacks on telecommunications networks around the world. Photo: Visual China.

Israeli security firm accuses the Chinese government of being able to stand behind the incident. Affected networks in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, have no American names.

“Sophisticated attacks have been ongoing at least since 2017 targeting many telecommunications network providers. Hackers have tried to steal all data in active folders, accounts and passwords, personal information, call history and messages, email servers, user locations, “the report said.

Cybereason describes it as a cat-and-mouse race. The attacker will be paused after being discovered and then continue to invade many times. Although the target is aimed at individuals, Cybereason warns that access to a telecommunications service system will cause enormous consequences. Hackers can temporarily turn off or break the entire mobile network if a total “war” is made.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Cybereason CEO Lior Div spent a weekend summarizing the incident for more than 20 global operators. Units that are directly affected by the news are skeptical and angry. He said the company had never witnessed such a large-scale attack.

The collected data is very valuable to the intelligence community. Although it is impossible to access call and text content, hackers can exploit information like who the audience is talking to, for how long, when and from where.

China is entangled in a war with the US. Photo: Reuters.

“The Soft Cell campaign allows hackers to access the entire active directory of the network, thus reaching hundreds of millions of users. With highly privileged accounts, they will walk around the telecommunications system and act as legitimate employees, ”WSJ quoted the report.

Cybereason suspected the APT10 hacker group was behind the attack, but did not rule out other names. The company detects Internet servers, domain names and protocol addresses from China, Hong Kong or Taiwan.

“We draw conclusions with a high degree of certainty. Hackers are affiliated with China and most likely backed by the State. The tools and techniques used this time are similar to the way some Chinese hacker groups have done, ”the report stressed.

FireEye and CrowdStrike, the companies that contributed to sketching the comedy about APT10 for Wired, knew they couldn’t verify the information of Cybereason. But both have confirmed that carriers are becoming targets of state-backed hackers.

Cybereason’s warning comes amid a US ban on the telecommunications giant Huawei and the war between the two powers has yet to show signs of cooling down. Chinese companies quickly “lashed out” when forecasting sales would drop by $ 30 billion compared to the plan.

Huawei smartphones are at risk of not being able to pre-install Android, Facebook and many Google services. That might be the end of the Shenzhen giant’s effort to become the world’s largest phone maker.

Source : ZingNews