HKSAR gov’t hacked by Chinese cyberspies, FireEye says

Two Hong Hong government agencies have come under attack from cyberspies originating in China in the month leading up to yesterday’s legislative elections, according to a U.S. cybersecurity firm.
On at least three occasions in early August, the China-based group APT 3 targeted the organizations with “spear-phishing” attacks, in which e-mails with malicious links and attachments containing malware are used to access computer networks, said John Watters, president of iSIGHT, a unit of FireEye Inc. He said the hacks were “certainly” politically motivated, based on their targets.
Watters declined to say what agencies were attacked because his firm seeks to identify attackers, not shine a spotlight on the victims. It wasn’t possible to confirm whether APT 3 was linked to any Chinese government organization, he said, adding that the Hong Kong authorities had been informed of the incidents.
The Hong Kong’s government office for information confirmed it had been informed about the hacks. “Relevant security measures had already been put in place to block the suspicious e-mails,” it said in a statement. “So far, there is no security incident report from the two concerned departments.” Bloomberg