Chinese hackers planted bug in ‘BJP won’t dump Modi for Nitish’: Report

Wednesday, June 12th, 2013 | by News desk

 According to a report by cyber security major Kaspersky, Chinese hackers used a hot topic in Indian politics to send a malicious file targeting Indian systems last year.  The report says the hackers had planted a malicious software in a file named, ‘BJP won’t dump Modi for Nitish’. It shows how keenly these hackers are watching the Indian political scene.
According to the report, those who opened this file ended up infecting their systems, which helped the Chinese hackers secretly upload information on to their servers back home. The malicious file contained 1,013 words.
It may be recalled that earlier this year, Indian intelligence agencies found that several DRDO systems were compromised. A malicious file named ‘Indian Army Cyber Policy’ had affected Indian systems resulting in several files marked as ‘Top Secret’ being uploaded on to China-based servers. Now Kaspersky found that these files were infected with malicious software called “TheNettraveler” also known as “TravelNet. When the media reported about this the DRDO had denied it.
Kaspersky also reported that they landed in several mirror sites when they tracked the path of the Chinese malware.  Ironically, some of these sites were also offering tips on net security and privacy.  These sites were masking elaborate intelligence operation to gather sensitive information.
Indian intelligence agencies had recovered several sensitive files, including Cabinet Committee on Security files of the government of India, from a server in Guangdong, China.