Daily Management Review

Various Countries’ Computer Security Watchdogs Collaboratively Discover Activities Related To Large Scale ‘International Cyber-Attack’


04/07/2017


The IT services were tapped into for gathering the consumer information for selecting possible targets and conducting “Cloud Hopper” cyber-attacks.



The Swedish watchdog of computer security uncovered a possible “large-scale” cyber-attack that targeted the U.S., Sweden, and Japanese organisations along with various other “European countries” which could take place “through IT services providers”.
 
The said mission was conducted in collaboration with “National Cyber Security Centre” of Britain, “PwC and cyber security firm BAE Systems”, whereby targeting “managed service providers” which allows access to their “customers' internal networks” since the month of May 2016, while potentially it dates back as much as the year of 2014.
 
The said attacked has been named “Cloud Hopper” which comes from an organisation under the name of “APT10”, although its exact scales are yet to be discovered. However, from what is confirmed, it appears that the said attacked could “involve huge amounts of data”. Nevertheless, the “Civil Contingencies Agency” of Sweden did not clarify if the cyber-attacks were still an ongoing activity. In its words:
“The high level of digitalization in Sweden, along with the amount of services outsourced to managed service providers, means that there is great risk that several Swedish organizations are affected by the attacks”.
 
The attacks were designed using “significant resources” which helped the group to detect their “targets”, following which “sophisticated phishing e-mails” were sent out to those location to “infect computers”. While Reuters also stated that:
“It also said Swedish IP addresses had been used to coordinate the incursions and retrieve stolen data and that APT10 specifically targeted IT, communications, healthcare, energy and research sectors”.
 
 
 
 
References:
http://www.reuters.com