US firm alleges Chinese hacking of Cambodian government
US cybersecurity firm FireEye says targets include country’s National Election Commission as well as daughter of imprisoned opposition leader
A Chinese espionage group has hacked several key Cambodian government entities ahead of the Kingdom’s national election on July 29, US cybersecurity firm FireEye claims.
Hackers targeted at least one opposition figure by impersonating a human rights group employee in emails, according to FireEye research released on Wednesday. The report found that a group known as TEMP.Periscope – believed to be working at the Chinese government’s behest – has gained access to computers within various Cambodian ministries.
FireEye, led by CEO Kevin Mandia, a former member of the US Air Force, has been active in exposing Chinese espionage groups, most notably a widespread intellectual theft operation by a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Unit in 2013, which led to its officers being indicted by the US Department of Justice. In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA that invests in technology, has a stake in FireEye.
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FireEye has dismissed its CIA links, saying IQT owns “far less than 1 per cent” of the company and that no one from IQT or any intelligence agency sits on its board.
Cambodia’s National Election Commission (NEC) has also been compromised, said Ben Read, FireEye’s senior manager of Cyber Espionage Analysis. “That would give them the ability to potentially steal files [and] see what was happening on that computer.”
Wang Dexin, head of the political section at the Chinese embassy in Cambodia, and Ma Yuanchun, director of the Foreign Media Relations Division at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, did not respond to multiple calls and emails.
Cambodian interior ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said he had no information about the cybersecurity breach before hanging up. He did not respond to subsequent phone calls.