Czech Republic accuses China of ‘malicious cyber campaign’ against its foreign ministry

PRAGUE AP The Czech Republic has accused China of being responsible for cyberattacks against a a communication organization of its Foreign Ministry bureaucrats reported on Wednesday The Foreign Ministry in Prague declared the malicious programs started in and targeted the country s critical infrastructure adding it deduced the Advanced Persistent Threat or APT hacking group which is associated with the Chinese Ministry of State Precaution was behind the campaign It was not straightaway clear what specific information were seized or what damage was caused by the attacks The Czech ministry mentioned a new communication system has already been put in place Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsk explained in a separate comment that his ministry summoned China s ambassador to Prague to make it clear to Beijing that such programs have serious impacts on mutual relations The leadership of the Czech Republic strongly condemns this malicious cyber campaign against its critical infrastructure the comment reported Such behavior undermines the credibility of the People s Republic of China and contradicts its masses declarations The Chinese Embassy dismissed the Czech accusations as groundless It stated China fights all forms of cyber attacks and does not encouragement promote or tolerate hacker attacks The United States denounced the Chinese programs and called on China to stop it directly the U S Embassy in Prague mentioned in a message It reported ATP previously targeted U S and foreign politicians foreign agenda experts and others APT has also stolen commerce secrets and intellectual property and targeted entities in certain of America s the majority vital critical infrastructure sectors including the Defense Industrial Base information machinery and vitality sectors the embassy stated NATO and the European Union also condemned the attack and expressed solidarity with the Czechs We observe with increasing concern the growing pattern of malicious cyber engagements stemming from the People s Republic of China NATO commented This attack is an unacceptable breach of international norms Kaja Kallas the EU s foreign approach chief announced The EU will not tolerate hostile cyber actions In a separated cyberattack in the email account of then Czech Foreign Minister Lubom r Zaor lek and the accounts of dozens of ministry administrators were successfully hacked Personnel mentioned the attack was sophisticated and experts thought it was done by a foreign state which was not named then Sam McNeil contributed to this summary from Paris Source