Global Hacking Scandals
Chinese hackers hacked Microsoft
From January to March 2021 hackers in China hacked Microsoft Exchange, an email system for businesses and government offices, and 30,000 accounts were infected.
Q: Why did they target Microsoft Exchange?
confidential information
intellectual property
surveillance software
surveillance = (noun) “ser-vey-lunss”
= to watch closely (and often secretly)
Q: Do you think the Chinese government is connected to the hackers?
Microsoft said the Chinese government probably sponsored the attack.
On July 19th the US government, the EU, UK, Japan and Australia accused China of hacking Microsoft.
Q: Are you surprised by this?
Q: How do you think China will respond?
When Russia was accused of this in 2020 there were trade sanctions against them. Do you think these countries will impose trade sanctions on China?
Background:
It’s very rare for government to criticize China because of their economic dependence on them (cheap parts, factories and rare metals). By working as a group they have more power to avoid an individual attack on one country
It’s unlikely trade sanctions will be imposed
Governments are hacking smartphones
17 newspapers from around the globe collaborated on a story about NSO Group, an Israeli company that sells software to government that can hack into smartphones.
The confirmed customers are:
Rwanda
Saudi Arabia
Hungary
India
UAE
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Kazakhstan
Mexico,
Morocco
Q: What’s your image of these governments?
corruption
human rights
democracy
Q: Why do governments want to hack into people’s phones?
The contract says the government can only use the software on criminals or terrorists.
Q: Do you think governments used the software on other types of people?
A target list of of 50,000 phone numbers was leaked. Targets included:
journalists
human rights lawyers
government ministers
diplomats
political activists
Notable leaders:
Presidents of France, Mexico, South Africa, Morocco
Prime Minister of Pakistan
King of Morocco
President of the EU council
Director General of WHO
Notable Journalists from:
France 24
Associated Press
Bloomberg
Economist
Reuters
Wall Street Journal,
Financial Times
CNN
New York Times
Al Jazeera
Q: What should countries do to stop this happening?
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/06/technology/microsoft-hack-china.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57889981
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/20/emmanuel-macron-identified-in-leaked-pegasus-project-data