As long-time Daily Quoters might know, cyber warfare is a recurring theme on The Daily Quota - partly due to its relevance to future geopolitics and partly because some of the resources at my disposal are just so good.
We've been hearing a lot about Chinese hackers recently, especially in the Australian news. However, think-tank Mandiant have put together some limited resources and great methodology, joined the dots, and have identified what appears to be the elusive cyber-warrior division of the Chinese PLA.
Mandiant began researching one particularly sustained cyber attack on the US and other Western countries which it had code-named APT1 (Advanced Persistent Threat 1). Combining quantitative data and some intelligence, it had discovered that a lot of the activity from this group (ranging from a few dozen operators to a few thousand) was coming from a vicinity suspiciously close to the PLA's 'Unit 61398'.
Could this be the infamous PLA cyber division?
Here's their succinct conclusion:
Conclusion
The sheer scale and duration of sustained attacks against such a wide set of industries from a singularly identified group based in China leaves little doubt about the organization behind APT1. We believe the totality of the evidence we provide in this document bolsters the claim that APT1 is Unit 61398. However, we admit there is one other unlikely possibility:
READ IT HERE
We've been hearing a lot about Chinese hackers recently, especially in the Australian news. However, think-tank Mandiant have put together some limited resources and great methodology, joined the dots, and have identified what appears to be the elusive cyber-warrior division of the Chinese PLA.
Could this be the infamous PLA cyber division?
Here's their succinct conclusion:
Conclusion
The sheer scale and duration of sustained attacks against such a wide set of industries from a singularly identified group based in China leaves little doubt about the organization behind APT1. We believe the totality of the evidence we provide in this document bolsters the claim that APT1 is Unit 61398. However, we admit there is one other unlikely possibility:
A secret, resourced organization full of mainland Chinese speakers with direct access to Shanghai-based telecommunications infrastructure is engaged in a multi-year, enterprise scale computer espionage campaign right outside of Unit 61398’s gates, performing tasks similar to Unit 61398’s known mission.It's interesting to see how some joining-the-dots can yield very important results for Western military, civilians and businesses - and all made public via the link below. Have a read of the report (I recommend the Executive Summary and the first few dot points for the time-stricken).
READ IT HERE
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