Chinese hackers are believed to have targeted and stolen data from an Indian government agency responsible for a national identification database ‘Aadhar’ and one of country’s largest media conglomerates the Times Group.
This is according to a new report by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future Inc.
The Unique Identification Authority of India, also known as the UIDAI, contains the private biometric information of more than 1 billion Indian citizens. The authority’s networks were believed to have been breached during intrusions tracked between June and July this year, though it’s not clear what data was taken, according to Recorded Future.
The government agency said it had no knowledge of such a breach and that its database was encrypted and only available to users with multifactor authentication. The agency had a “robust security system in place” that was constantly upgraded to maintain the “highest level of data security and integrity,” an email from the agency said.
Times Group Data Stolen
Bennett Coleman & Co., also known as the Times Group, which publishes the Times of India, also appeared to be targeted by the Chinese hackers, according to Recorded Future. Data was exfiltrated from the company between February and August, but it wasn’t clear data was stolen, Recorded Future said.
The company dismissed the report, saying the “alleged exfiltration” was blocked by its cybersecurity defenses.
The chief information officer for the Times Group, Rajeev Batra, said an internal security report for the company described the intrusions as “non-serious alerts and false alarms.”
China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment during a holiday period in the country.
Recorded Future, a cybersecurity firm based near Boston, said it used a combination of detection techniques and traffic analysis data to identify patterns of suspicious network traffic between servers the government agency and media company used and servers used to administer and control the hackers’ malware.
In addition to data supposedly being siphoned away, Recorded Future said it was highly likely that malicious software was embedded inside the agency’s and the media companies’ computer networks, which would allow the hackers to remove data on demand.
Responding to the Times Group’s comments, Jonathan Condra, the lead analyst on Recorded Future’s report, said he was able to observe “sustained communications across a single session that lasted five days” from the media company’s networks. He said there were also “strong indications” that the communications were coming from within the Times’ computer networks and going out to malicious servers, “which suggests a successful implant communicating outwards.”
Reasons
Recorded Future believes the UIDAI was targeted because of its database of biometric information though it’s not clear if the database was breached. The value of such bulk personal identification data is its ability to potentially identify government officials, enable social engineering attacks or add to data already gathered on potential targets, Mr Condra said.
The Times Group could have been a target because of its reporting on Indian-Chinese tensions, “likely motivated by wanting access to journalists and their sources,” the report said.