Report: Chinese probed Alaska organizations after trade talks in early 2018
As trade tensions between China and the U.S. heated up earlier this year, an Alaskan trade delegation visited China in late May. Immediately following that trip, companies and government organizations in Alaska experienced a dramatic spike in network reconnaissance activities from inside a top Chinese university, according to the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. The reconnaissance activity was conducted with infrastructure at Tsinghua University that was previously associated with hacking of geopolitical targets in support of China’s economic development goals, Recorded Future’s researchers said. Chinese computers scanned Alaskan internet service providers and government websites for security vulnerabilities, a tactic that can signal an attempt to conduct cyberattacks. Research branches at Tsinghua — an elite Chinese research school in Beijing ranked as one of the best technical universities in the world — “also have connections to state organizations with a history of stealing U.S. technology,” Recorded Future’s Sanil Chohan, Winnona DeSombre, and Justin Grosfelt wrote. The analysis also connected sophisticated cyberespionage […]
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