Hackers backed by the Chinese government were able to obtain\naccess to private text messages by compromising prominent telecommunications\nfirms. FireEye, a cybersecurity firm, was able to do a deep dive into the\nattack to confirm what was stolen and who it was stolen by. As of now, FireEye\nhas not yet disclosed the telecom company (or companies) impacted by the hack,\nmaking it impossible for users to determine if and how they were affected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who The\nHackers Were and How They Stole the Info <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n APT41 is a group of state-backed hackers in China that\noperate in the best interest of Beijing. These hackers used malware called\n\u201cMessagetap\u201d, a malicious program that allows text messages to be intercepted,\nread, and stored. The attacks took place on the telecommunication company\u2019s\nservers, rather than the smartphones of the individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n APT41 then mass searched these text messages for keywords\nand phone numbers specified by the Chinese government, under the guise of\ngeopolitical interest or national security in regards to the Chinese\ngovernment. The governments of other countries don\u2019t seem to regard this move\nas a normal act of national security for China, as it is blatantly illegal and\nundeniably little more than spying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This revelation comes at a time when tensions are high\nbetween the United States and Chinese tech manufacturers like Huawei. China\noften overextends its surveillance and participates in acts of espionage, and\nthe United States views tech manufactured by Huawei to be a potential threat to\nnational security. Huawei denies any wrongdoing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Who Was\nTargeted in the Attack <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There is evidence that certain individuals were specifically\ntargeted while others were merely caught in the crossfire, but FireEye has not\npublicly released information regarding these targeted entities. It is safe to\nassume that any vocal opponents of the Chinese government or avid supporters of\nthe Hong Kong protest of prominent status were likely targets, as they seem to\nbe held in the highest level of contempt by the Chinese government. It\u2019s\ninevitable that text messages send and received by normal civilians were caught\nin the crossfire, as entire servers were compromised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is also a possibility that the attack was designed to\nbe as widespread and encompassing as possible. A recent discovery showed that\neveryone who downloaded the state-backed Chinese propaganda app \u201cStudy the\nGreat Nation\u201d had effectively had their device compromised or hacked by the\nChinese government, as the app\u2019s insidious permissions allowed it access to the\nentire smartphone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The long and short of the situation is that targets have not\nbeen specifically named, but could very well be just about everyone who ever\nused the keywords that APT41 searched for on the hacked telecom servers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Protecting Your Communications <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sending an unprotected SMS message is no different from sending mail in an unsealed envelope \u2013 anyone can read it, and you would never know about it. The only way to protect your communications from hackers is to communicate exclusively though end-to-end encrypted services. PrivateMail<\/a> uses OpenPGP encryption and paranoid encrypted cloud storage for all messages and attachments sent or received through a PrivateMail inbox. Messaging apps like Signal offer a similar level of encryption. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hackers backed by the Chinese government were able to obtain access to private text messages by compromising prominent telecommunications firms. FireEye, a cybersecurity firm, was able to do a deep dive into the attack to confirm what was stolen and who it was stolen by. As of now, FireEye has not yet disclosed the telecom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[25,10,26],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/privatemail.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/privatemail.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/privatemail.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privatemail.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privatemail.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/privatemail.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80,"href":"https:\/\/privatemail.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/80"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privatemail.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/privatemail.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privatemail.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privatemail.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}