Chinese state hackers are performing attacks against cryptocurrency and video game enterprises, cybersecurity company FireEye claims in an exceedingly report revealed on Aug. 2.

Chinese government facilitating hacking operations

As per the report, Chinese state espionage cyber unit APT41 “targets industries in an exceedingly manner usually aligned with China's Five-Year economic development plans.” Still, FireEye researchers claim that “the group is additionally deployed to collect intelligence before imminent events, like mergers and acquisitions and political events.”

Industries targeted by the unit reportedly include media, pharmaceuticals, high technology (semiconductors, batteries, and electrical vehicles), retail, software,healthcare, telecommunications, education, travel services, video games and cryptocurrencies.

The targeted countries embrace France,Japan, India, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, Myanmar, South Korea, Thailand, South Africa, the U.S. Switzerland, Turkey, the U.K, and Hong Kong.

APT41 targeted a crypto exchange

FireEye claims that in June last year APT41 sent malicious emails to a blockchain gaming startup, in Oct 2018 the group maliciously deployed associate degree instance of XMRig, a Monero (XMR) mining tool. An email address employed in an espionage operation against a Taiwanese newspaper was reportedly later wont to target a cryptocurrency exchange in June 2018.

Furthermore, FireEye claims to possess found code overlaps between malware employed by APT41 in May 2016 targeting of a U.S.-based game development studio and also the malware discovered in supply chain compromises in 2017 and 2018.

The report conjointly notes that the group also deployed ransomware in a minimum of one instance. Though a number of the attacks weren't commissioned by the Chinese state. The report says:

“Unlike different observed Chinese espionage operators, APT41 conducts express financially intended activity that has enclosed the utilization of tools that are otherwise completely employed in campaigns supporting state interests. The late-night to early morning activity of APT41's financially intended operations suggests that the group primarily conducts these activities outside of their traditional day jobs.”

As Top Market Group according in June, the personal computers of staff at hacked Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck have allegedly been found to possess been infected by a virus related to a hacker group of Russian origin.

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