Hackers Steal Data From Telcos in Espionage Campaign

Hackers broke into the systems of more than a dozen global telecom firms and stole huge amounts of data in a seven-year spying campaign, researchers from a cyber security company said, identifying links to previous Chinese cyber-espionage activities. From a report: Investigators at U.S.-Israeli cyber firm Cybereason said on Tuesday the attackers compromised companies in more than 30 countries and aimed to gather information on individuals in government, law-enforcement and politics. The hackers also used tools linked to other attacks attributed to Beijing by the United States and its Western allies, said Lior Div, chief executive of Cybereason. "For this level of sophistication it's not a criminal group. It is a government that has capabilities that can do this kind of attack," he told Reuters. Div later presented a step-by-step breakdown of the breach at a cybersecurity conference in Tel Aviv in the same session that the heads of U.S. and British cyber intelligence units and the head of Israel's Mossad spy agency spoke.

Sure?

[AmiMoJo]

Are we sure this is the Chinese? It's the sort of thing that GCHQ has been caught red handed doing.

Re: Sure?

[TiberiusKirk]

This is not transparency. The Chinese are not going to share the information with you. They will keep it in their vault to use against you in the future.

Re:

[fustakrakich]

So, they're double agents, working for the telcos?

Yes

[raymorris]

Yes, we are.

GCHQ doesn't need to break in, they have their own rack at the telcom for what they do.

Sitting behind me right now are some other people who gather all the data on what particular groups of people are doing on the internet. This particular article is about Chinese operations.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

They hacked a Dutch telco a few years back.

That's true

[raymorris]

That's true.

A lot of hacking going on. Keeps me busy and well paid.

which companies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Name and shame them, then immediately fire their CIOs and CISOs.

Hackers?

[Zorro]

Sorry those are the actions of a first class spy agency. Probably both Russia and the Chinese.

Re:

[Archtech]

Funny that you think of Russia and China in connection with "a first-class spy agency".

But I imagine you would think of the USA in connection with "first-class" anything else.

Cognitive dissonance?

It's all conjecture and hearsay

[JoePete]

"The hackers also used tools linked to other attacks attributed to Beijing by the United States and its Western allies ...." If after a murder, some police chief offered "You know this looks the work of [insert a demographic of your choice] gang," there would an outcry jumping to conclusions. When dealing with a digital crime, the opportunity to plant false evidence is massive, but even more so is the opportunity to mislead by some group of officials. Let us not forget, for example, the U.S.-Israel collabor

This is terrible!

[PPH]

It undermines the ability of the telecoms to monetize this data by selling it themselves.

Since some little noticed rule changes were made in a telecommunications bill decades ago (1996 IIRC), all that metadata belongs to the phone company. It's no longer the property of the calling parties*. And they can do with it what they damned well please**.

*I'm old enough to remember a clause in telephone service agreements that stated that they would need access to _your_ call records for the purpose of billing. Not any more, because those records now belong to the phone company.

**Try calling the phone company service number about some issue. Odds are you'll get a service rep in Bangalore with a thick Hindi accent. 'Your' data has already left the country. It's no different if you are the CIA. Someone in a third world country can look up all the phone numbers of agents who make calls to your front desk.