Chinese hackers who tried to take down a local power network last month are linked with the Chinese Communist Government; Microsoft has seized forty-two dodgy Chinese linked web sites and Apple has forked out over $300 billion to stop hack attacks on iPhones and Mac Computers.
Yesterday it was revealed that Chinese hackers came within minutes of shutting down a series of Australian power stations that provided lighting and power to three million homes.
Several of the Chinese Government Ministries linked with the hackers have shareholding in major consumer electronics and appliance Companies operating in Australia.
Late last month Queensland’s CS Energy was subjected to a sustained ransomware attack which sources familiar with the matter say was only stopped at the last minute before it had the potential to shut down the company’s two thermal coal plants.
Had the attack been successful, it could have taken 3500 megawatts of power out of the grid – enough to power between 1.4 and three million homes claims News Corp publications.
The hackers managed to disable a number of the company’s corporate systems with several employees still not having access to emails.
One of the frightening issues according to sources is the close relationship between Australian Communication carriers such as Vodafone TPG Optus and Telstra.
Currently TPG is still supplying Huawei fibre routers to Australian Companies as part of their high-speed broadband offering. Both Telstra and Optus are still selling smartphones from banned Chinese manufacturer ZTE while Optus is still working with China Telecom a 100% Chinese Government owned entity.
Assistant Minister for Defence Andrew Hastie told The Daily Telegraph: “The cyber threat environment has deteriorated significantly … I’m deeply concerned about the increasing pace of foreign influence attempts and espionage, as well as criminal and state sponsored cyber activity against Australia.”
Security organisations have told ChannelNews that they are “deeply concerned” that Chinese commercial organisations operating in Australia are being used by the Chinese Government to spy and hack organisations in Australia.
In 2020-21 the government’s Cyber Threat Report found a 15 per cent increase in ransomware attacks from the previous year, with a cyber-attack occurring every eight minutes.
Last year the Joint Parliamentary Committee for Intelligence and Security heard it was “100 per cent possible” foreign states already had a “dormant” presence on local critical infrastructure networks that could be activated over the course of a conflict.
Earlier this year the Nine Network suffered a crippling ransomware attack this year blamed on Russian hackers, which disrupted live programming and caused weeks of disruption.
Committee Chair Senator James Paterson said it was urgent that legislation reforming emergency powers to help the government assist private companies fight foreign cyber threats was passed.
Big CE brands such as Apple who are desperate for sales are still cuddling up to the Chinese Government.
Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook signed an agreement with Chinese officials recently, estimated to be worth about $275 billion, to placate threats that would have hobbled its devices and services in the country claims Reuters.
Yesterday Microsoft announced that it had disrupted the cyber-spying of a state-backed Chinese hacking group by seizing 42 websites used to gather intelligence from foreign ministries, think tanks and human rights organizations in 29 different countries, including Australia and the USA.
The company said that a US Federal Court granted its request to seize the domains from the group it calls Nickel – but is also known as APT15 and Vixen Panda.
This allowed Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit to take over the websites and redirect traffic to its secure servers to ‘help us protect existing and future victims while learning more about Nickel’s activities,’ the firm said in a press release.
