An elite Russian organized crime organization claimed responsibility for the sophisticated hacking attack on three million Australian homes. It happened within minutes.
Initially, the Chinese government was blamed for a ransomware attack that CS Energy launched on two Queensland thermal coal plants. It happened on November 27, 2007.
Hackers attempted to hack into generators that circulated more than 3500MW of electricity, resulting in employees losing access to important internal information.
Wizard Spider is a well-known criminal gang from Saint Petersburg, which has been sought by Interpol as well as the FBI. They now claim to be responsible for this major cyber attack.
Hackers attempted to cut off electricity supply to 3 million homes in Australia within minutes, but were stopped at the end. Pictured by CS Energy at the Kogan Creek Power Station
Conti, an advanced ransomware which copies vast quantities of infected data to a computer system, is used by the group.
‘I haven’t seen anything linking this one to China,’ Robert Potter, a fellow at the Center for Rule-making Strategies at Tama University in Tokyo, wrote on Twitter.
“So far, the malware attribution appears to be Conti. This is Russian organized crime group.
This attack could have knocked out power at between 1.4-3.5 million houses. There is no way to know how long it may take to restore control.
The hackers were foiled after IT specialists came up with a brilliant last-minute move to block access, by separating the company’s corporate and operational computer systems.
Hackers couldn’t seize control of generators once the network had been cut in half.
Soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army march through Beijing, China near the Forbidden city. Initial ransomware attacks were initially blamed on the Communist regime
Sources familiar with the incident said that the hackers were just 30 minutes away shutting down the power grid.
The chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Senator James Paterson, warned that urgent reforms are needed in order to strengthen Australia’s cyber defense capabilities.
According to him, “Our cyber vulnerabilities increase in complexity because of two reasons: First, the increasingly connected digital nature our lives,” he said to the Daily Telegraph.
Scott Morrison disclosed last year that an insidious’state-actor” had launched a sustained and sophisticated cyber campaign to hack into Australian hospitals, banks, universities, and transport networks.
Wizard Spider, a criminal gang from Saint Petersburg that is well-known for their notorious cyber attacks has now claimed responsibility (file photo of Saint Petersburg is shown).
Security professionals initially pointed fingers at Beijing. Former officials claimed the cyber invasion was an act of vengeance for Australia’s move to ban Huawei 5G.
China’s telecommunications company is the largest global 5G infrastructure builder, but Canberra prohibited its participation in Australia’s crucial infrastructure rollout in August 2018 due to national security concerns.
The relationship between Canberra and Beijing has worsened since then. Beijing is still angry at Canberra for asking for an independent investigation into the causes of the Covid-19 epidemic.
After IT professionals devised a clever last-minute plan to prevent access, the hackers were stopped (stock photo)
Xi Jinping responded by imposing tariffs and bans worth billions of dollars on a variety of Australian exports.
However, Australia isn’t the only country that has been affected by cyberattacks from Beijing.
Microsoft announced Monday that it had ‘disrupted’ the activities of Nickel, a China-based hacking organization which was responsible for attacks on the US and other 28 countries.
Originally, cyberattack was blamed on state actors acting for Chinese President Xi Jinping. However, a Russian organized crime group has claimed credit.
Software giant Oracle stated, “We believe that these attacks were largely used for intelligence collection from government agencies and think tanks as well as human rights organizations.”
China attacked infrastructure and utilities sites in India last month with cyber attacks. They also attempted to close down a coal-fired power station.
Officials from Taiwan claim that their tiny democracy, located 180km away from China’s coast, is subject to up to five million attacks per day. The vast majority of these are likely to be directed at Beijing.