Chinese Accused of Huge Attack on Energy Sector

Chinese hackers have been accused of launching a major cyberattack against Western energy companies that appears to have resulted in the theft of an unknown number of highly sensitive documents.

According to McAfee, which has dubbed the attacks Night Dragon in a detailed analysis, the hacking of five unnamed companies in the global oil, energy, and petrochemical sector in a number of countries started in November 2009 and still ongoing.

Using hosts based in The Netherlands and the US, the first layer of the attacks comprised the compromise of extranets and VPNs using SQL injection exploits, the use of Trojan malware targeting the PCs and laptops of employees, and the monitoring of infrastructure such as firewall and other security systems.

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