German bluechip companies including Siemens AG, BASF, Henkel and other giants have been targeted in a coordinated malware attack.
Earlier today, German public broadcaster ARD said the attacks were from an alleged Chinese hacking group using a malware called Winnti.
According to the report, the Winti malware remotely accesses a victim’s computer network. ARD said a preliminary investigation shows that the hackers were allegedly working for the Chinese government.
Reuters said in a report that other companies targeted in the coordinated hacking attacks are drugmaker Roche, hotels group Marriott, airline Lion Air, conglomerate Sumitomo, and chemicals group Shin-Etsu.
All the mentioned bluschip companies have confirmed they were targeted in the cyberattacks. According to an earlier report, there was a former Winnti attack on computer systems at German technology group ThyssenKrupp in 2016.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry is expected to comment on the matter but has not given any statement on the matter.
This hacking incident is coming at a time Chinese tech giants especially Huawei Technologies Co Ltd are being criticised for their closeness with the Chinese government and as such posing a major security threats to intellectual property and national security of many countries.
In May, the U.S. Department of Commerce placed Huawei, the world’s largest telecoms company in the ‘Entity List’ banning the company from doing business in the U.S.
