Chinese cyber center points finger at U.S. over alleged cyberattacks to steal trade secrets

The CNCERT said it had “handled’ two attacks on Chinese tech companies, which it attributed to an unnamed suspected U.S. intelligence agency.

China’s national cyber incident response center accused the U.S. government of launching cyberattacks against two Chinese tech companies in a bid to steal trade secrets.

In a notice Wednesday, the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China (CNCERT) said a suspected U.S. intelligence agency was behind the attacks, and that CNCERT had “handled” them, according to a Google translation.

The U.S. government has long accused China of cyber espionage to steal trade secrets from domestic companies, and China’s allegations about U.S. cyberattacks arrives in the midst of a very public campaign from U.S. government officials blaming China for a major attack on telecommunications carriers.

CNCERT said one of the attacks dates back to August of this year, against “a certain advanced material design and research unit.” The suspected attackers exploited a vulnerability in a document management system to infiltrate the software upgrade management server the company used, then install Trojans in more than 270 hosts of the company, CNCERT said.

The other attack dates to May of last year, against a “large-scale high-tech enterprise” in China’s “smart energy and digital information industry,” according to CNCERT. The center’s analysis determined that the attackers exploited Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities to get into the company’s mail server, then implanted backdoors and took control of devices at the company and its subsidiaries.

China has, in recent years, stepped up its charges about U.S. cyberattacks. The report did not name a specific U.S. government office or entity responsible for the attacks.

The Chinese Communist Party-owned newspaper China Daily published an infographic this year detailing allegations that the United States is the leading source of cyberattacks against China over the past five years, citing CNCERT in part.

Republican lawmakers, as well as a top official in the incoming second Trump administration, have said recently in response to the Salt Typhoon telecommunications breaches that the United States has been too timid about going on offense against China.

CNCERT describes itself as a non-governmental non-profit cybersecurity technical center. China Daily said it is led by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Spokespeople for the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

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