Chinese firm hacked Indian immigration data: Post
The documents come from iSoon, also known as Auxun, a Chinese firm headquartered in Shanghai that sells third-party hacking and data-gathering services to Chinese government bureaus, security groups and state-owned enterprises.
India is one of the targets of China’s intelligence and cyber-surveillance and Beijing’s hackers appeared to have successfully breached 95.2 gigabytes of immigration data from the Indian government, an investigation by The Washington Post has revealed.
The Post, in a report published Thursday, said that a trove of leaked documents from a “Chinese state-linked hacking group shows that Beijing’s intelligence and military groups are carrying out large-scale, systematic cyber intrusions against foreign governments, companies and infrastructure — exploiting what the hackers claim are vulnerabilities in software systems from companies including Microsoft, Apple and Google”.
“The cache — containing more than 570 files, images and chat logs — offers an unprecedented look inside the operations of one of the firms that Chinese government agencies hire for on-demand, mass data-collecting operations,” it said.
It said the files — posted to GitHub last week and deemed credible by cybersecurity experts, although the source remains unknown — detail contracts to extract foreign data over eight years and describe targets within at least 20 foreign governments and territories including India, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Taiwan and Malaysia.
The documents come from iSoon, also known as Auxun, a Chinese firm headquartered in Shanghai that sells third-party hacking and data-gathering services to Chinese government bureaus, security groups and state-owned enterprises.
“One spreadsheet listed 80 overseas targets that iSoon hackers appeared to have successfully breached. The haul included 95.2 gigabytes of immigration data from India and a 3 terabyte collection of call logs from South Korea’s LG U Plus telecom provider,” the Post reported.
The group also targeted other telecommunications firms in Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal and Taiwan.
US intelligence officials see China as the greatest long-term threat to American security and have raised alarm about its targeted hacking campaigns.
New Delhi has also taken coercive action, especially since the Galwan incident in June 2020, against Chinese mobile applications, citing possible surveillance by Beijing.
In September 2020, The Indian Express had published a series which revealed how a Shenzhen-based information technology firm, Zhenhua Data, with links to the Chinese government and military, is monitoring over 2.5 million individuals across the world, including at least 10,000 Indians. The investigation has elicited a range of responses.
The Government of India had decided to set up an “expert committee” under the National Cyber Security Coordinator in the National Security Council Secretariat following a three-part investigative series by The Indian Express.
From the accused in the AgustaWestland bribery case to a ring of juveniles who stole mobile phones, hundreds accused of financial crime, corruption, terror, organised crime, smuggling of narcotics, gold and wildlife form a significant chunk, as many as 6,000, of the Indian individuals monitored by Zhenhua Data, the investigation by The Indian Express had revealed.
Among the high-profile entries logged in Zhenhua’s Overseas Key Individual DataBase (OKIDB) are income-tax evasion cases against 19 companies founded by friends or relatives of former Satyam Group chairman Ramalinga Raju; the fodder scam corruption scandal where officials and suppliers conspired to fraudulently drain the Jharkhand treasury; and the Vyapam scam involving the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board.