The Wuhan Earthquake Monitoring Centre in China suffered a cyber attack that local officials said was the work of a hacker group with an “overseas government background”.
The cyber attack on the earthquake monitoring centre was reported on 26th July by several Chinese media outlets, including the Global Times. According to media reports, officials at the Wuhan Municipal Emergency Management Bureau believe that the cyber attack was carried out by a hacker group backed by an overseas organisation.
In a statement shared with the media, the Wuhan Municipal Emergency Management Bureau said that immediately after identifying the cyber attack, officials disconnected the affected systems and reported the incident to law enforcement authorities.
According to China Daily, a backdoor programme was inserted in some of the station’s network equipment to control the systems and extract seismic activity data. The news outlet added that a preliminary investigation by Wuhan police indicates that the cyber attack was carried out by “overseas hacker organisations with governmental backgrounds.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning directly blamed the United States for the cyber attack in a press conference. “The US government is engaged in malicious cyber operations against not just China but countries around the world,” he said.
When asked if the US had a direct connection with the security incident, Ning said the hacker group behind the cyber attack had “overseas government background”. “China will take necessary measures to safeguard its cyber security,” he added.
The US embassy in Beijing did not comment on the allegations brought forward by the Chinese officials.
The news of the cyber attack on the Wuhan Earthquake Monitoring Centre comes amidst growing tension between the US and China. Earlier this month, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden had asked the Federal Trade Commission, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Justice Department to “take action” against Microsoft following a China-linked hack that reportedly resulted in the theft of thousands of government emails from top US officials.
Microsoft is under increasing scrutiny following revelations that hackers allegedly operating on Beijing’s behalf got hold of one of its cryptographic keys and took advantage of a coding flaw to gain sweeping access to the company’s cloud email platform. That access was used to spy on the communications of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and senior State Department diplomats.
It was also reported that the Beijing-linked hackers accessed the email account of the US ambassador to China in an espionage operation that has compromised hundreds of thousands of US government emails.
