U.S. cybersecurity research and consulting firm Crowdstrike on October 15 released a report that claimed officials from China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), underground hacking groups and personnel, cyber security researchers, and employees (moles) of multiple companies in many countries were involved in cyber theft operations to assist development of the C919 commercial aircraft by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China Ltd. (Comac). Crowdstrike’s report revealed that MSS designated the Jiangsu provincial State Security division to carry out hacking attacks, while the Jiangsu division appointed two coordinators. One coordinator led the hacking team and the other was responsible for recruiting people from aerospace companies in different countries. Between 2010-2015, the hackers attacked a list of companies including U.S. electronic instruments and electromechanical devices manufacturer Ametek, U.S. multinational conglomerate Honeywell that produces engineering services and aerospace systems, French multinational aircraft engine, rocket engine, aerospace-component and defense company Safran, U.S. gas turbine manufacturer Capstone, and General Electric. It said that these hacking operations attempted to recruit and utilize China’s underground hacking gangs to gain access to the target company’s network and install malware such as Sakula, PlugX, and Winnti, use these software to find the proprietary intellectual property and trade secrets of the target company, and send the information to the remote servers.
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