Brussels, 11/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - Chinese hackers eavesdropped on the computers of five EU foreign affairs ministries before the last G20 summit in St Petersburg in September, which was dominated by the Syrian conflict, according to Reuters.
The hackers infiltrated the ministries' computer systems by sending emails to members of their staff with such titles as “US military options in Syria”. Opening these emails allowed malware to be installed. For a week in late August, FireEye managed to monitor the hackers' activities on the main computer server but lost trace of them when they changed server just before the summit. The hackers were then at the point of stealing data, FireEye believes. “The theme of the attacks was US military intervention in Syria”, said FireEye researcher Nart Villeneuve, one of six researchers who worked on the issue. “That seems to indicate something more than intellectual property theft (...). The intent was to target those involved with the G20”, he went on, saying he was confident - based on technical and linguistic data - that the hackers were Chinese.
The Russians are also suspected of spying on Europeans at the last G20 - through the use of USB “spy” keys. (SP/transl.fl)