What Are the Latest Cyberthreats from China?

Is the Chinese Government Sponsoring Cyberterrorism?

Join other On Time Tech clients who have taken the initiative to hire a managed service provider to safeguard their business, nonprofit and other organizations. As a perk, you may be contributing to the security of the entire country.  

If you run a busy nonprofit in the San Francisco Bay Area, you’re probably familiar with the increasing number of headlines surrounding cybersecurity threats and data breaches. Many investigators point the finger at Russia, but Chinese hackers are increasingly throwing their hats in the ring to gain access to personal data and essential systems to hold your organization hostage or to sell names, phone numbers and addresses on the Dark Web. Reliable cybersecurity services are most important than ever.

On Time Tech offers your nonprofit cybersecurity solutions to detect and turn away would-be bad actors. State-backed hacking, the digital version of state-backed terrorism, does not discriminate in its targets, aiming to disrupt our economy as a whole and, perhaps, your organization in particular. In case you think you don’t have any data worth stealing, the names and other personal information of your donors and volunteers can be sold to the highest bidder on shadow websites.

How Long Have the Chinese Been a Major Player in Structured Malware Attempts?

As far back as 2013, China began a concerted campaign to infiltrate governments in Southeast Asia. These include Taiwan, Vietnam, Myanmar and Indonesia --- all companies with strained relationships with the PRC.

An investigative group in Palo Alto, referred to as Unit 42, has uncovered numerous attempts by Chinese nationals to unleash malware on businesses and other organizations. Known as PKPLUG, malware stuffed inside ZIP files unpacks a virus on individual devices. This virus can remain dormant for months until the malefactors are ready to launch an organized attack.

What Is the Motive Behind These Attacks?

According to The Next Web’s Ravi Lakshmanan, “Researchers have revealed a previously undocumented threat actor of Chinese origin,” and it has successfully launched a minimum of six cyberespionage campaigns in Southeast Asian alone.

The motives of the group remain murky, but one thing is clear. The hackers have sophisticated delivery systems and a track record of accessing the data they have targeted.

Crowdstrike is a global cybersecurity vendor and it reported the state-sponsored Chinese hack attacks included more intrusive campaigns against industries than Vietnam, Russia, North Korea and Iran.

Industries on the hit list included financial institutions, aviation, law enforcement and telecommunications.

In its Overwatch Mid-Year Report for 2019, CrowdStrike called out the most common tools used to deliver state-sponsored attacks. They include:

• PsExec
• PC Hunter
• ProcDump

What Happened with the Chinese Attack on an Airbus in 2019?

Many investigators attribute the Chinese government with an attack on Airbus this year. One must wonder if it’s safe to allow any Chinese technologies into critical infrastructure, core industries and military defense industries that could pose particularly juicy targets for the communist government in Beijing.

If you’re in the aerospace or defense industry, you need a reliable partner to suss out possible attacks from foreign governments. Software and other products developed abroad can be designed from the ground up to deliver viruses that leave your data at the mercy of Chinese malefactors engaged in industrial espionage or worse.

There are enormous consequences for the entire nation in these data breach scenarios. However, On Time Tech is specifically dedicated to protecting the interests of your nonprofit or other organizations in the Bay Area. We’ll evaluate your current system and make swift, positive changes in the following areas:

• Inventory software
• Asset management
• Multifactor authentication

Join other On Time Tech clients who have taken the initiative to hire a managed service provider to safeguard their business, nonprofit and other organizations. As a perk, our cybersecurity services may be contributing to the security of the entire country.

Contact us today to schedule an evaluation of your current IT infrastructure and any security or performance challenges you may be facing.