Chinese authorities claim that the US is employing a hack on its major research organization

Chinese authorities claim that the US is employing a hack to target one of China’s major research organizations and steal data from it. China has claimed that the National Security Agency, often known as NSA, of the US Defense Department, conducted a cyberattack on Northwestern Polytechnical University.

The university is listed between 500 and 600th and 87th on Times Higher Education’s (THE) 2022 World University Rankings and 2022 Asia University Rankings, respectively. In the QS World University Rankings for 2022, the university is ranked between position 551 and position 560.

Nevertheless, the US views the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China’s primary military force and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party, as the organization, a Chinese university that carries out military research (CCP).

One of the most recent reports from the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CVERC) highlighted the cyberattack. CVERC is the Chinese equivalent of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

According to the report, the cyberattack was purportedly carried out by the Tailored Access Operations (TAO) division of the NSA. Northwestern Polytechnical University’s cybersecurity system was compromised utilizing 41 hacking tools. One of the TAO’s tools, “Suctionchar,” was used to obtain remote systems’ login credentials from the university’s servers. TAO also used the Linux backdoor Bvp47 to its advantage.