Zhang Tong
China’s research institutes have come under a cyberattack launched by the US government, according to China’s cybersecurity authorities.
The National Computer Virus Emergency Response Centre in Beijing said on Wednesday that FoxAcid, a hacking program linked to the US National Security Agency (NSA), was found in hundreds of key information systems used by scientific research institutes.
The centre said the attack could signal NSA preparations for larger-scale cyberwarfare.
“We encourage all users from all over the world to be aware of the risk and the fact that Chinese research institutions were not the only victims,” the centre said.
“Government, academic, and business bodies around the world might all become targets of the NSA.
“When running a new ‘colour revolution’ operation, such a weapon enables US intelligence agencies to steal sensitive data at any time, and cause outages of critical infrastructure in wartime.”
Used by the computer network exploitation team affiliated with the NSA’s Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO), FoxAcid is a vital component of the NSA’s cyberespionage operations, particularly against China and Russia, according to Snowden.
The software targets bugs in widely used internet browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer and Apple Safari, to support cross-platform attacks.
The centre said FoxAcid was extremely difficult to detect – “almost like a black hole of the internet”.
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China has strengthened its information security structure since the Snowden revelations. In 2019, Beijing rolled out a new national standard on cybersecurity known as “hierarchical protection 2.0”.
The standard requires all public institutions to have regular drills to bolster defences against cyberattacks. Cybersecurity is also a factor in assessments of local governments.
But universities and research institutes remain a weaker spot.
In July 2021, for instance, the private data of more than 70,000 students and parents in Yancheng, Jiangsu province, was leaked to a cram school. In April, Northwestern Polytechnic University, one of China’s top military research institutes, said some students and staff had received emails containing Trojan horses from “foreign hacker groups”.
Tang Wei, vice-president of Beijing-based cybersecurity company Rising, said universities hosted some of the most active online communities, making them difficult to protect.
“The complexity of the network environment, diversity of sub-platforms, variety of security policies, and inconsistency of equipment sources can all pose a challenge to cybersecurity,” Tang said.
He said cybersecurity companies in China were working on ways to overcome those dangers.
Ye Chao, director of Rising’s security research institute, said the Chinese cybersecurity community had long worked on threats from the US.
“The cyberattacks revealed to the public such as the FoxAcid ones are only the tip of an iceberg. What’s hidden underwater is our real concern,” Ye said.
“It is certain that, from the documents made public on the internet, the US is increasing its cyberattacks, both in scale and number of weapons. But security is guaranteed at the government level.”
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