On March 25, US, UK and New Zealand officials accused China of conducting extensive cyber attack campaigns. Beijing protested.
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| China is being accused by the West of supporting cyber attacks. (Source: Sky News) |
Associated Sky News UK quoted Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden as saying in the House of Commons that the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) assessed that a Chinese state-owned cyber entity "highly likely" carried out the attack. sophisticated attacks on the Election Commission, including the accounts of parliamentarians, during 2021-2022.
The British government did not name the Chinese organization believed to be responsible for the incident.
In addition, Mr. Dowden also said that the NCSC has assessed "almost certainly" that the hacker group nicknamed APT31, affiliated with the Chinese state, has conducted spying activities against British parliamentarians in the past. a separate campaign in 2021.
The UK and US have filed indictments against APT31 and a long list of targets of this group including: White House staff, US senators, British parliamentarians and government officials around the world, who are has a critical view of Beijing.
Defense contractors, dissidents, and security companies have also suffered cyber attacks.
In this indictment announced on March 25, US prosecutors said that the cyber attack resulted in a confirmed compromise or created a risk to work accounts and personal emails. , an online archive and phone call records of millions of Americans.
The announcement came as both the UK and US imposed sanctions on Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology, believed to be a front company of China's Ministry of State Security.
Meanwhile, according to the news agency AFP, the New Zealand government said on the same day that a group of hackers "backed by the Chinese state" broke into the country's parliamentary system in a 2021 cyber attack, but was discovered and eliminated by Wellington. .
However, the page Nzherald of New Zealand said that the government does not want to apply sanctions against China after the above cyber attack.
Responding to the above allegations, China's representative agencies in the US and UK issued statements of protest.
The Chinese Embassy in the UK stated that those accusations were "completely baseless and malicious slander".
Spokesman of the Chinese Embassy in the US Liu Pengyu alleged that the majority of cyber attacks are carried out by the US, which is why Washington is putting critical global infrastructure at risk.
