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 setup of its Foreign Ministry executives reported on Wednesday The Foreign Ministry in Prague declared the malicious engagements started in and targeted the country s critical infrastructure adding it presumed 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 forthwith clear what specific information were seized or what damage was caused by the attacks The Czech ministry declared a new communication system has already been put in place Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsk reported in a separate comment that his ministry summoned China s ambassador to Prague to make it clear to Beijing that such sessions have serious impacts on mutual relations The ruling body of the Czech Republic strongly condemns this malicious cyber campaign against its critical infrastructure the announcement declared Such behavior undermines the credibility of the People s Republic of China and contradicts its general declarations The Chinese Embassy dismissed the Czech accusations as groundless It stated China fights all forms of cyber attacks and does not patronage promote or tolerate hacker attacks The United States denounced the Chinese sessions and called on China to stop it right away the U S Embassy in Prague disclosed in a report It revealed ATP previously targeted U S and foreign politicians foreign approach experts and others APT has also stolen contract secrets and intellectual property and targeted entities in particular of America s greater part vital critical infrastructure sectors including the Defense Industrial Base information system and capacity sectors the embassy mentioned 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 exercises stemming from the People s Republic of China NATO disclosed This attack is an unacceptable breach of international norms Kaja Kallas the EU s foreign protocol 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 leaders were successfully hacked Bureaucrats mentioned the attack was sophisticated and experts concluded it was done by a foreign state which was not named then Sam McNeil contributed to this summary from Paris Source