China’s military is thought to have instructed a hacker group to conduct cyberattacks on nearly 200 Japanese research institutions and firms, public broadcaster NHK reported, citing unidentified people in a police investigation.
The investigators found a member of China’s Communist Party made contracts under a false name for rental servers in Japan that were used in the attacks on the Japanese space agency JAXA in 2016, the broadcaster said yesterday.
Investigators believe the cyberattacks were carried out by a group known as Tick under the instruction of the People’s Liberation Army. Two men involved with contracts for the servers have left Japan, NHK said.
A Chinese systems engineer in his 30s, who is a Chinese Communist Party member, was referred to prosecutors over his alleged involvement in the attacks, Kyodo News reported, citing unnamed investigative sources.
The reported allegations, the latest in a series of similar incidents, come amid increasingly difficult relations between Japan and its biggest trading partner. The topic of ties with China dominated the agenda at Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s summit with U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington last week.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato declined to comment on the investigation. He told a regular news briefing yesterday cyberattacks on infrastructure were becoming more organized and the government saw responding to such incidents as an important issue.
Responding to a question on the NHK report about the alleged suspect at a regular news briefing in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said he wasn’t aware of the case. Wang later added cyberspace is made up of many actors whose origins are difficult to trace and warned against making accusations in cybersecurity cases.
“In designating an incident, there must be ample evidence. It cannot be based on presumption,” he said. “We are against other countries smearing us on cybersecurity or using this issue to serve its despicable political agenda.”
Cyberattacks are a common threat to all countries and China too was a victim, he added.
A JAXA spokesperson confirmed it was the subject of an unauthorized access that seemed to be a cyberattack, but suffered no damage, according to NHK. Japan has been seeking to beef up its cyber defenses in recent months. Isabel Reynolds, Bloomberg
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