tirsdag 26. mars 2024

APT1, Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units (2021)

Since 2004, Mandiant has investigated computer security breaches at hundreds of organizations around the world. The majority of these security breaches are attributed to advanced threat actors referred to as the “Advanced Persistent Threat” (APT). We first published details about the APT in our January 2010 M-Trends report. As we stated in the report, our position was that “The Chinese government may authorize this activity, but there’s no way to determine the extent of its involvement.”

Now, three years later, we have the evidence required to change our assessment. The details we have analyzed during hundreds of investigations convince us that the groups conducting these activities are based primarily in China and that the Chinese Government is aware of them.3 Mandiant continues to track dozens of APT groups around the world; however, this report is focused on the most prolific of these groups. We refer to this group as “APT1” and it is one of more than 20 APT groups with origins in China. APT1 is a single organization of operators that has conducted a cyber espionage campaign against a broad range of victims since at least 2006. From our observations, it is one of the most prolific cyber espionage groups in terms of the sheer quantity of information stolen. 

The scale and impact of APT1’s operations compelled us to write this report. 

UK imposes sanctions after Chinese-backed cyber-attacks

The UK government has formally accused China of being behind what it called "malicious" cyber campaigns against MPs and the Electoral Commission. Two people and a company have been sanctioned over cyber-attacks. Deputy PM Oliver Dowden said they were behind attempts to access details of MPs critical of Beijing, as well as the data of potentially 40 million voters.

The Chinese embassy in the UK says these are "completely unfounded" claims amounting to "malicious slander". The two Chinese nationals sanctioned by the UK are Zhao Guangzong and Ni Gaobin and the company is Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology Company Ltd, said by the British government to work for the China state-affiliated cyber espionage group Advanced Persistent Threat Group 31 (APT31).

The UK sanctions will freeze assets, barring UK citizens and businesses from handling their funds or resources. A travel ban will also prevent them from entering or remaining in the UK. "The UK will not tolerate malicious cyber activity," Mr Dowden said. "It is an absolute priority for the UK government to protect our democratic system and values."

Millions of Americans caught up in Chinese hacking plot - US

Millions of Americans' online accounts have been caught up in a "sinister" Chinese hacking plot that targeted US officials, the justice department and FBI said on Monday. Seven Chinese nationals have been charged with enacting a widespread cyber-attack campaign. They are accused of ties to a hacking operation that ran for 14 years. The US state department announced a reward of up to $10m (£8m) for information on the seven men.

The justice department said hackers had targeted US and foreign critics of China, businesses, and politicians.The seven men allegedly sent over 10,000 "malicious emails, impacting thousands of victims, across multiple continents", in what the justice department called a "prolific global hacking operation" backed by China's government. "Today's announcement exposes China's continuous and brash efforts to undermine our nation's cybersecurity and target Americans and our innovation," FBI Director Christopher Wray said.


mandag 25. mars 2024

Cambodia's Prince Group: A business empire built on crime?

In less than a decade, the Prince Group emerged seemingly out of nowhere to become one of Cambodia’s fastest growing and best-connected conglomerates. What lies behind this multibillion-dollar empire? For three years, RFA has dug through business records and tracked down sources everywhere from remote villages to international financial centers trying to answer this question.

Radio Free Asia's three part investigative series reveals a concerning blend of opaque business ventures, alleged criminality and political cronyism. The Prince Group has denied any wrongdoing, but with Beijing vowing to crack down on illegal practices overseas, some wonder if the Prince Group’s days are now numbered. However, the group’s deep ties to Cambodia’s current and former prime ministers may yet offer the company protection.

The Political Geography of the South China Sea Disputes

The South China Sea, one of the world’s most important and contentious bodies of water, constitutes a complex geopolitical space. It is frequently subject to misunderstandings and, in some cases, propaganda. The purpose of this Perspective is to provide essential background and context to the South China Sea dispute (which is, in reality, a series of disputes) from a political geography standpoint - that is, from the perspective of states that border a water feature, and their respective territorial claims over South China Sea spaces. Specifically, this primer will focus on the South China Sea’s physical geography and the origins and development of littoral states’ respective claims to portions of the South China Sea, including islands, rocks, and low-tide elevations.

Philippines summons Beijing envoy over South China Sea water cannon attack

The Philippines has summoned Beijing’s envoy after accusing the Chinese Coast Guard of wounding three of its soldiers during a water cannon attack in the disputed South China Sea. The Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs, in a statement on Monday, said Manila conveyed its “strong protest against the aggressive actions” undertaken by China’s Coast Guard and Chinese maritime militias against the Philippine mission near the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea.

Blinken stands by US’ ‘ironclad commitment’ to defend Philippines amid fears of China conflict

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday reiterated the United States’ “ironclad commitment” to defend the Philippines as rising tensions with China in the South China Sea raise fears of a broader regional conflict.

Stability in the region is seen as being increasingly threatened by clashes between Chinese coast guard and maritime militia units and Philippine vessels around disputed features in the waterway. In the most recent confrontation two weeks ago, a Chinese coast guard vessel used a water cannon against a Philippine boat, shattering its glass panel and injuring four Filipino sailors.

Speaking at a joint news conference with his Philippine counterpart in Manila, Blinken said the allies “have a shared concern about the PRC’s (People’s Republic of China) actions that threaten our common vision for a free, open Indo-Pacific, including in the South China Sea and in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.”

søndag 24. mars 2024

WORDS OF THE WEEK: XI JINPING’S PENCHANT FOR “POINTING THE WAY FORWARD”

The use of the standard Party formulation of Xi Jinping “pointing the way forward” on various policy issues has become so commonplace that the phrase has become an object of satire, a way of mocking Xi’s cult of personality and penchant for claiming personal leadership over any number of policy spheres. It has also given rise to some of Xi’s many nicknames, including “the immortal compass” and “Compass-in-Chief.”

Recently, the influential X (née Twitter) account “Teacher Li is Not Your Teacher” shared a list of over 240 topics on which Xi Jinping has pointed the way forward. The non-exhaustive list, drawn from articles published by People’s Daily and Xinhua, was compiled by volunteers and covers the years from 2015 to 2024. Topics range from the wildly ambitious (“humanity’s future development”) to the specifically political (“full implementation of the spirit of the 20th National Party Congress”) to the regional (“promoting the economic integration of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei”) to the athletic (“promoting the accelerated development of winter sports in China.”) CDT has republished and translated the list, with some added context and background links.


“When It All Comes down to It, China Has No Real ‘New Year’”

Li Chengpeng, born in 1968, also known as “Big-eyed Li,” had a successful career as a popular sports reporter in Beijing. He enjoyed early notoriety for his reporting on corruption in soccer, which is a national obsession, and his political ambitions. In recent years, Li has come to be known for social commentary and his scathing essays on current affairs. For the most part, his work circulates in China unofficially and he also publishes a column in Yibao, an independent media site operating outside the People’s Republic of China.

In late 2022, Li published “Take it from me, we are losing the war because we can salute too well,” a letter addressed to the year 2022. The title is a quotation from All Quiet on the Western Front, a famous anti-war novel by Erich Maria Remarque. In the letter, Li observes that: "In retrospect, a lot of the things that happened during 2022 seem ridiculous, even absurd. Upon closer inspection, however, they still reflect the irrefutable logic of power."

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It’s Grim out There: China’s Economy in the Year of the Dragon

At the end of January, a Hong Kong judge ordered the liquidation of the heavily-indebted Chinese real estate giant Evergrande. It was just the latest piece of bad news for China’s economy, after a year of disappointing growth, high youth unemployment, and various surveys and media reports that show a lack of confidence amongst China’s entrepreneurs and consumers.

Some observers have been predicting an economic collapse in China for decades. Others have long predicted that China would be stuck in a middle-income trap or some other type of economic stagnation. Might some of these predictions come true this time? What does the Year of the Dragon have in store for consumers, companies, and markets? What should we look out for this year to understand both China’s real economy and its financial sector?

lørdag 23. mars 2024

Beijing Is Pouring Resources into Its UN Human Rights Review—All to Prevent Any Real Review from Taking Place

When Xi Jinping took power just over a decade ago, China was already an authoritarian, one-party state, but since then he has tightened control so severely that persecution of dissidents and government monitoring of virtually all areas of life have become common.  Xi’s assault on human rights inside and outside China, including arbitrarily detaining more than a million Uyghurs and issuing bounties for Hong Kong dissidents who have fled abroad, is now so pervasive that some veteran observers liken Xi’s rule to Mao Zedong’s extensive political control.

What Will Newly Increased Party Control Mean for China’s Universities?

In January, Radio Free Asia reported that the Chinese Communist Party is “taking a direct role in the running of universities across the country” by merging the presidents’ offices with their Party committees.

Ideological controls on universities have been tightening for more than a decade. In 2013, a leaked Party directive, Document 9, warned against threats to the Party’s rule from “mistaken views and ideas . . . public lectures, seminars, university classrooms, class discussion forums,” and in the media and on the Internet. Last year, the Party’s General Office renewed the warning with a notice ordering legal theorists and educators to “firmly oppose and resist erroneous Western views of ‘constitutional government,’ ‘separation of three powers,’ and ‘independence of the judiciary.’”


torsdag 21. mars 2024

Hong Kong court affirms landmark sedition conviction for pro-democracy activist

Criticizing laws or chanting anti-government slogans can be enough to jail someone for sedition in Hong Kong, an appeal court ruled Thursday in a landmark case brought under a colonial-era law increasingly used to crush dissent.

Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal upheld a 40-month sentence for pro-democracy activist Tam Tak-chi, the first person tried under the city’s sedition law since Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Tam’s lawyers had argued his conviction should be overturned because the prosecution did not show he meant to incite violence. The prosecution is widely seen as part of Beijing’s clampdown on dissent in the former British colony, following widespread anti-government protests in 2019.

Tam was convicted on 11 charges in 2022, including seven counts of “uttering seditious words.” A judge at the lower court took issue with him chanting the popular protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” — words the government says imply separatism — and criticizing the Beijing-imposed National Security Law during a primary campaign.

How will a new national security law affect different walks of life in Hong Kong?

As Hong Kong passed a new national security law, the city that evolved from a swampy fishing village to a financial center embarked on another transformation, one that may redefine its role on the world stage and the liberties of its citizens. For the government and supporters of Beijing, the legislation is the keystone in fulfilling a constitutional duty, heralding a new era focused squarely on economic prosperity. It will take effect on Saturday.

However, for those who value Hong Kong’s once-vibrant political culture and commitment to openness, the legislation exacerbates fears of dwindling Western-style civil liberties that are fundamental to its allure as a global financial hub. Here’s what you need to know about the new law.

From China's Past: A Remarkable Couple in China - Archibald and Alicia Little

Archibald John Little (1838-1908) was a Manchester merchant and businessman in China. He first went to China in 1859 as a tea taster for a German company. This was the time of the Taiping Rebellion against the Qing Dynasty in China. Archibald set up his own business at Kiukiang (Jiujiang), moved to Shanghai and came up with the idea of using steamships to navigate the Upper Yangtze; a difficult stretch of water for shipping due to the seasonal fluctuations in water level and the presence of rapids and rocks. Previously, Chinese vessels such as junks were pulled upstream by ‘trackers’ hauling on ropes. Archibald Little wrote books about his travels in China, and set up a trading company in the western province of Sichuan.

Alicia Little or Mrs Archibald Little (1845-1926), as she often referred to herself, was an author, and social campaigner. A good summary of Alicia’s life can be found in Elisabeth Croll’s Wise Daughters from Foreign Lands European Women Writers in China (Pandora, London, 1989).

onsdag 20. mars 2024

Article 23: Local politicians hail new security law, as foreign gov’ts, NGOs slam ‘devastating’ effect on freedom

Foreign governments, politicians and NGOs have condemned the fast-tracked passage of Hong Kong’s new, local security law, whilst local political parties and government departments hailed Tuesday’s unanimous vote in the opposition-free legislature. Article 23 of the Basic Law stipulates that the government shall enact laws on its own to prohibit acts of treason, secession, sedition and subversion against Beijing. Its legislation failed in 2003 following mass protests and it remained taboo until after the onset of the separate, Beijing-imposed security law in 2020.

Pro-democracy advocates fear the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance – set to be enacted from Saturday – could have a negative effect on civil liberties, despite the authorities citing a constitutional duty. Treason, insurrection and sabotage will now be punishable by up to life in prison.

What is Article 23, Hong Kong’s new draconian national security law?

Legislators in Hong Kong have approved a new national security law ­- referred to as Article 23 – that gives the government new powers to crack down on all forms of dissent on the grounds of alleged treason, espionage, sedition and external interference in Hong Kong’s internal affairs. Article 23 is the second such security law since 2020, when authorities cracked down on months of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, leading to the arrest or flight into exile of hundreds of activists, politicians and public figures advocating for more openness in the Chinese-ruled financial hub.

Hong Kong authorities say the new legislation – which will come into power on March 23 – is necessary to reinforce existing national security laws, while critics say it will be used to intimidate and further restrict the rights and free expression of residents in Hong Kong and overseas.

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Hong Kong: The New Security Law (full text)

Here is the controversial security law adopted by the Legislative Assembly in Hongkong. All 88 members of the assembly voted in favor of the law. 

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