You must assess deep into your supply chain. Each company has a different supply chain footprint (customers, manufacturing operations, suppliers, transportation partners, etc.), product portfolio, risk tolerance, etc.
We have already learned that delays, shortages, and disruptions can escalate quickly. SUPPLY CHAIN RISK is abundant for companies with operations or core suppliers (without backups that could ramp up rapidly with replacement volumes) in China. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out potential supply chain impacts. China also has a law that if anything goes through a server in China (which would involve any companies operating in China), the Chinese government can see it. Additionally, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) also puts the Chinese knee deep in infrastructure projects around the world. It has accelerated in the last decade with recent approval for investment in Germany and Peru. Even more alarming is that they are buying farmland by US military bases and other critical infrastructure.Īs if that wasn’t enough, according to the Wall Street Journal, China is also expanding investments of ports and other infrastructure around the world. According to the USDA, there has been a 21-25 fold increase since 2010 (depending on whether looking at acres or dollars). Unfortunately, there is another 3 million acres without an owner listed, and so the number could be higher. In addition, according to the Wall Street Journal and USDA data, as of December 2020, Chinese investors own almost 350,000 acres of US farmland at a minimum. It has politicians and citizens up-in-arms about the potential impacts, and it bolsters concerns about China. According to US senior military officials, it is confirmed that the balloon is tied to a major surveillance program run by China’s military. This includes locating and collecting specific documents from infected computers and networks, but also extracting data removable drives, and taking screenshots and keylogging.As has been all over the news, the Chinese sent a spy balloon which floated across the U.S.
“Its purpose,” Check Point says, “is to gather intelligence and spy on the countries whose governments it has targeted. The Arian-body RAT can be instructed to create or delete files or entire directories, take screenshots, search across files and gather metadata, and even log locations and keystrokes. Once executed, the loader establishes itself in the startup folder or registry of the infected machine, and then downloads a more malicious remote access trojan (RAT) from its external server, before decrypting and installing it on the machine. “In one example, a server used in attacks belonged to the Philippine Government’s Department of Science and Technology.”Īt the heart of Naikon’s campaign was the “Aria-body” loader, a malware dating back to 2017 that is designed to open a backdoor to the APT’s command and control servers. The crafted subject matters then had specifically targeted individuals in mind. Sitting inside the trusted ecosystem, those emails would slip the security nets. The campaign discovered by Check Point includes the sophisticated cyber weapon able to compromise government systems, but also an extensive intelligence operation that determined targets and crafted the lures that baited emails being sent from one government entity to another. “Check Point researchers have now blown Naikon’s cover,” the firm has said, “confirming that the group has not only been active for the past five years, but has also accelerated its cyber espionage activities. Naikon’s primary method of attack is to infiltrate a government body, then use that body’s contacts, documents and data to launch attacks on others, exploiting the trust and diplomatic relations between departments and governments to increase the chances of its attack succeeding.”
And given the highly charged regional politics with China’s constant battle for influence and defensive superiority, playing neighbours with a mix of belt and road carrot and militaristic stick, this is notable. “This is usually associated with nation states that want to rewind faulty actions and remove traces,” Check Point explains. The ability to target a weapon at specific files on a specific individual’s machine in a specific government ministry can be a collection or deletion tool. Use of Philippine government server by malware.
0 kommentar(er)
