Under 100 Words: A Compact Summary
Chinese hacking firm I-Soon, aka Auxun, steals and shares 95.2 GB of Indian immigration data with the Chinese government. Leaked documents on GitHub reveal a global operation targeting 80 locations, offering espionage services for various data, including NATO information and personal details from platforms like Telegram and Facebook. Reported pricing ranges from $15,000 for website access to $278,000 for social media data (Indian Immigration Data Breach).
- Chinese companies are engaged in hacking data from various countries and providing it to the Chinese government, including the theft of Indian data.
- Documents leaked online by the Chinese hacking firm I-Soon reveal the compromise of at least 95.2 gigabytes of immigration data from India, as reported by The Washington Post (WaPo).
- The stolen information encompasses details of both national and foreign passengers’ flights and visas, as highlighted in a separate report by The New York Times (NYT).
- I-Soon, known as Auxun in China and based in Shanghai, specializes in providing third-party hacking and data-gathering services to Chinese government agencies, security groups, and state-owned enterprises, as reported by The Washington Post (WaPo). The company has gained attention for its involvement in cyber activities.
- Last week, over 570 files, images, and chat logs originating from iSoon were posted on GitHub (Indian Immigration Data Breach). These files not only contained data from India but also targeted at least 80 other locations globally.
- The compromised information extended to telecommunications firms in Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, and Taiwan (Indian Immigration Data Breach).
- According to leaked documents, iSoon’s clients sought or acquired infrastructure data. The disclosed spreadsheet indicated that the firm possessed a sample of 459 GB of road-mapping data from Taiwan, a country with a population of 23 million, which China claims as its territory, as detailed in the report.
- While the majority of the compromised data originated from Asia, I-Soon, the hacking entity also known as Auxun, was found to possess information from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), according to reports (Indian Immigration Data Breach).
- The New York Times (NYT) disclosed that I-Soon claimed access to internal email services and intranet entry for various Southeast Asian government ministries, including those of Malaysia’s foreign and defense sectors and Thailand’s national intelligence agency.
- Leaked data includes personal information extracted from accounts on platforms such as Telegram and Facebook (Indian Immigration Data Breach). The reports indicate that I-Soon is just one among “hundreds of private companies” providing espionage services to the Chinese government.
- While the exact pricing details are unclear, it has been reported that I-Soon offered the Chinese government access to the private website of Vietnam’s traffic police for $15,000. Additionally, personal data from social media sites was allegedly billed at $278,000.
ALSO READ – Massive Mobile Outage Strikes United States: AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Services Disrupted.
