China has publicly accused U.S. intelligence agencies of carrying out a cyberattack on the Wuhan Earthquake Monitoring Center in late July. The attack involved the planting of malware backdoors into systems that gather seismic intensity data.
A senior engineer for China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CVERC) said that the attackers were also attempting to identify underground structures and create a pathway for future cyber attacks to “fuel social panic.”
Du Zhenhua, a senior CVERC engineer, posited that the Wuhan cyberattack could have harmed regional earthquake monitoring and possibly triggered panic through false reports or undetected seismic events. Neither CVERC nor Chinese officials confirmed whether the U.S. intelligence agencies aimed to inflict damage or tamper with recorded data.
This is the first time that China has publicly accused the U.S. of carrying out a specific cyber attack. The move comes amid rising tensions between the two countries over a number of issues, including Taiwan and trade.
The sources for this piece include an article in CPOMAGAZINE.