New Delhi: In what appears to be a continuation in the string of cyber attacks recently, cyber security company Kaspersky Labs has said that Chinese cyber espionage group Danti has hacked the computers of top-ranking bureaucrats in Delhi and elsewhere raising concerns over crucial information having possibly slipped.
The Department of Electronics and Information Technology officials have admitted that this time this is a "big" cyber-attack. However, they have refused to provide any details, saying that the investigations were on and that the matter was sensitive.
According to media reports, the attack was targeted at a few computers in the Union Cabinet Secretariat, and that it has been stopped.
Kaspersky Labs, which is one of the world's top cyber-security companies, estimated that the cyber attack affected dozens of computers used by Cabinet-rank officials in Delhi. According to Kaspersky LabsSoutheast Asia officials, the malware has been transferred through emails and comments written in Mandarin, but in order to attract the attention of potential victims, the email addresses are in the names of several high-ranking government officials.
So how did it work? The malware was spread by the victim, in this case a bureaucrat. Just as they opened their mail, the Danti backdoor was installed and sensitive data drawn off from the infected computer.
Kaspersky Labs have also tracked several such emails in the Indian embassies in Hungary, Denmark and Colombia, which were targeted by Danti.
