In the modern days of the internet and technology, surveillance and spying don't require close encounters.
Gone are the days where government send spies across borders behind "enemy lines" to gather information about targets. Not anymore that governments need physical access to targets' belongings to uncover secrets. With the internet, anyone with the right set of tools and knowledge, can conduct espionage from half way cross the globe.
Powerful countries have long engaged in cyberespionage war between each other, and using their intelligence to track, observe and steal information from adversaries.
The U.S. has been doing this for more than a decade, as Edward Snowden had initially revealed.
And this time, a research from the Internet Security Company 360 based on the FoxAcid server code names, found that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has been launching cyberattacks against 47 countries and regions, covering 403 targets, with China's government departments, high-tech companies and military-related institutes among the key targets.
It is allegedly said that the U.S. government can also track people when they use the Tor network.
The researchers warned that NSA's surveillance is able to expose the privacy and sensitive information of millions of citizens around the world, as they have nowhere to hide.
In the eyes of the NSA, targets are like "running naked."
The researchers slammed the U.S. government behind the NSA for focusing only on their political self-interests.
Such invasion of privacy is a serious violation, and infringes on the legitimate interests of Chinese and global citizens, they stressed.
"We found that NSA organized attacks on targets in China, such as the government, finance, scientific research institutes, communications operators, education, military, aerospace, medical-related industries, with high-tech companies accounting for a large proportion," said the report.
To ensure their capabilities, the NSA has developed numerous operational plans to monitor global targets.
The expert researchers said that by only seeing through statistical analysis of the backdoor configuration field of the NSA's exclusive Validator, the potential attack against China is estimated to be very large.
"The most conservative estimate for Validator alone is that hundreds of thousands or even millions of computers have been infected by the virus."
Others that are being used include backdoor program like UnitedRake, QUANTUM attack system, and fake server FoxAcid.
In all, the campaign the U.S government is doing through the NSA can cripple a target country's transportation system, banking, aviation, water and electricity systems.
Worse, the attacks can be used to damage the country's political stability and economic lifeline, the researchers said.
The NSA is an affiliate of the U.S. Department of Defense, which specializes in electronic communications surveillance. Its main mission is to collect information from various countries, expose the communications activities of potential spies, and provide various kinds of processed intelligence information to the US government.
Through the NSA, the U.S. has been targeting numerous countries and regions.
And here, the researchers suggest that campaigns launched by the U.S. can be so efficient that they can collect personal and key data of the industry for a long time, which results in a large number of netizens' private data, such as their identities, property, home address and even voice messages and recordings, risk being maliciously collected, abused or transferred to overseas.
The researchers said that fighting on the land, sea and air is not the only way for a warfare.
With the internet, the cyberspace is becoming increasingly large and complex, that it has become another battlefield for countries with great powers.
Among the worst offenders include national-level advanced persistent threat (APT) organizations that are numerous.
And in this case, it is allegedly found that the hacking group working under the NSA is called the APT-C-40.
This hacking group has been around launching attacks at leading companies for more than 10 years
The finding is similar to Qi An Pangu Lab, a Chinese cybersecurity company, which has previously "declassified" technical details of a cyberespionage campaign allegedly perpetrated by an elite hacking group called 'Equation Group' working under the NSA.
The findings are based on keys published by the Shadow Brokers, a group that dumped a bunch of NSA tools and data to the internet.
Per Pangu Lab's findings, additional programs revealed by the Shadow Brokers matched “the unique identifiers” used in the NSA’s operating manuals that Edward Snowden divulged when he exposed the PRISM tool.
Pangu Lab’s publication of its report is notable as is only the second time a Chinese cybersecurity company has publicly attributed alleged hacking activities to a U.S. government intelligence agency.
