[ISN] Hackers Linked to China¢s Army Seen From EU to D.C.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-26/china-hackers-hit-eu-point-man-and-d-c-with-byzantine-candor.html

By Michael Riley and Dune Lawrence
Bloomberg.com
July 26, 2012

The hackers clocked in at precisely 9:23 a.m. Brussels time on July 18 
last year, and set to their task. In just 14 minutes of quick keyboard 
work, they scooped up the e-mails of the president of the European Union 
Council, Herman Van Rompuy, Europe’s point man for shepherding the 
delicate politics of the bailout for Greece, according to a computer 
record of the hackers’ activity.

Over 10 days last July, the hackers returned to the council’s computers 
four times, accessing the internal communications of 11 of the EU’s 
economic, security and foreign affairs officials. The breach, unreported 
until now, potentially gave the intruders an unvarnished view of the 
financial crisis gripping Europe.

And the spies were themselves being watched. Working together in secret, 
some 30 North American private security researchers were tracking one of 
the biggest and busiest hacking groups in China.

Observed for years by U.S. intelligence, which dubbed it Byzantine 
Candor, the team of hackers also is known in security circles as the 
Comment group for its trademark of infiltrating computers using hidden 
webpage computer code known as “comments.�

During almost two months of monitoring last year, the researchers say 
they were struck by the sheer scale of the hackers’ work as data bled 
from one victim after the next: from oilfield services leader 
Halliburton Co. (HAL) to Washington law firm Wiley Rein LLP; from a 
Canadian magistrate involved in a sensitive China extradition case to 
Kolkata-based tobacco and technology conglomerate ITC Ltd. (ITC)

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