Thread by @MissMaga2016

Chinese hackers planted spyware on unnamed telecommunication provider's servers and intercepted call records & text messages of "high value" targets.

zdnet.com/article/chines…

The spyware, called MessageTap, was planted on the company's SMSC servers and monitored the texts for particular keywords, such as words related to political, military, and intelligence targets.

Ahh, they also monitored for keywords of political movements. We all know that would be #HongKong.

They also filtered texts based on particular phone numbers and particular device identifiers.

The hackers also sifted through the phone provider's phone meta data database looking for calls to/from high-ranking officials that would be of interest to Chinese intelligence.

The spyware is also related to #China's spying/tracking of Uyghurs.

Here's another report from June 2019 detailing how Chinese hackers were targeting telecommunications companies.

cybereason.com/blog/operation…

They believe the hackers broke into at least 10 telcos to steal phone call data and geolocations. The hackers set up their own VPN and at least 10 accounts with administrator privileges.

zdnet.com/article/these-…

They reportedly identified targets in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe and 20 very specific targets were identified, though not named publicly.

Is that why so many of those countries are keeping Huawei in their networks? 🧐

In regards to MessageTap malware in particular, this article states that 4 telcos and 4 separate cell phone service providers had their networks injected with MessageTap.

thenextweb.com/security/2019/…