A US-Israeli cybersecurity firm has discovered a targeted cyber attack against global telecommunications companies that it likens to a military operation.
Last year, investigators at Cybereason found a global cyber-attack against “multiple” telcos that involved obtaining the user information of specific individuals from various countries, which the firm says it identifies as the work of “nation state threat actors”.
Despite being detected multiple times over the course of the year, the attackers would return using different approaches.
The attackers used tools and techniques that have often been attributed to the Chinese government.
“For this level of sophistication it’s not a criminal group. It is a government that has capabilities that can do this kind of attack,” Cybereason chief executive Lior Div told Reuters.
Cybereason declined to name the companies that were affected. According to a report of the firm’s discovery, there is a “very high probability that the threat actor behind these malicious operations is backed by a nation state, and is affiliated with China”.