The Chinese online criminals have found a new way of hacking into computers and taking down business web sites. Hackers have discovered a new weakness of the popular CMS applications such as Joomla and Drupal. Many of these hackers started creating their own websites to try and gain access to companies’ financial data. One method they use is by trying to hack into the web-based email system of the company and then attempting to obtain access to the companies main database. They send fake emails to appear to be from the company when in fact they are spamming the companies main email address.
Not only did the Chinese online criminals hacked into the company’s main database but also gained access to the personal information of many employees. Troy Hunt, a former vice president of the United States Federal Trade Commission has exposed some of these Chinese criminal hackers by exposing their web tools on his blog. We have included the link to his blog below:
The Chinese online criminals have been linked to the attacks on the United States Federal Trade Commission and the United States Chamber of Commerce. Some of the hackers used “troy” as a name in one of the emails they sent to gain access to the company’s database. Troy Hunt uncovered the fact that one of the hackers used the name “taosecurity”. The Chinese hackers used this name in one of the phishing emails that they sent to employees of the company.
This is not the first time that China has used a fake company name in an email to try and gain access to the cyber security systems of a large company. Most recently the Chinese hackers used the name “Chinatrade” in an email that was sent to the United States National Security Agency. The hackers used this fake Chinatrade business to try and gain access to a high level employee access database. The Chinese online criminals were successful in gaining access to the database, and data on over 100 million Chinese Americans was stolen.
Not only has the Chinese cyber criminals been linked to stealing government, private sector, and employee data, but now they have also been linked to stealing valuable information from the United States government’s top secret Cybersecurity Research Center. The cyber criminals took advantage of a hole in the security fence at the National Security Agency. The hole allowed multiple Chinese computer programmers to connect to the firewall without authorization. The programmers were able to use this access to send spear phishing emails to a huge number of employees within the company. Many of these employees went ahead and forwarded the emails to their home computers, and then the Chinese hackers accessed the company’s main server.
It is unfortunate that many companies do not realize that their website is a prime target for cyber criminals and that they do not take cyber security seriously. The best solution to protect your company from the cyber threats is to host your webinars in China. There are many experienced webinar hosts who have a dedicated team of professionals that can monitor your webinars, even when you are out of the country. Hosting webinars in China gives your company a huge advantage over its competitors, and a strong foothold into the booming Chinese Internet market.
