Chinese Hackers Targeting Oil & Gas Firms: McAfee

by Saurabh Mishra on February 11th, 2011 1

Whole world is crawling against hacking, few days before we reported about hacking NASDAQ stock exchange last. This time Hacking blows from Chinese gun. According to trusted sources, hackers from China have penetrated computers of global oil companies. Hackers have aimed to steal as much as documents related to bidding plans & confidential facts.

A Security firm based at US said in report, “Starting in November 2009, coordinated covert and targeted cyber attacks have been conducted against global oil, energy, and petrochemical companies,”. Apart from attacking company’s computers, the hackers also struck “individuals and executives in Kazakhstan, Taiwan, Greece, and the United States to acquire proprietary and highly confidential information,” (News Sources)

The first phase of the attack was to compromise the external server running a company’s website. Hacker tools were then loaded on the compromised machine and used to lever open access to internal networks. Then, cracking tools were used to gather user names and passwords and get deeper access. (Hacking activism)

Firm did not name any of the companies targeted by the hackers but it said all of the evidence pointed to them being based in China. Currently, no such hacking detecting tools available. But hackings gone doubled in last two years.

“We have identified the tools, techniques, and network activities used in these continuing attacks — which we have dubbed Night Dragon — as originating primarily in China.” McAfee said. (Statement given to Media)

Last year, Google said that it had enough evidences about cyber attacks originating in China. Google sources claimed, there were attempts to access the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists around the world. WikiLeaks sources cable said that China’s leadership directed the hacking campaign into computers of Google and Western governments.

McAfee Link: http://bit.ly/dQ3ZLS, Image taken from devilsworkshop.org