China’s Most Recent Cyberattack May Be Linked To AI Research
For well-developed AI to exist, it needs to be built with real-life data. That’s easy to get when you can hack into Microsoft Exchange.
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China’s most recent hacking attack on Microsoft Exchange might have just one major end goal: to boost AI development. This is far from the first time that China has been accused of engaging in a state-sponsored cyber attack, and Microsoft isn’t the first company to fall victim to breach. More often than not, these attacks are aimed at gathering exploitable information, but in an interesting shift in strategy, China might be using any data it obtained to fuel research into artificial intelligence.
There have been some very well-known Chinese-sponsored attacks in the past. For instance, back in 2018 Marriott’s Starwood hotels were breached and customers’ travel information like credit cards and passport data was stolen from its systems. Before that, Equifax was hacked and the credit information of almost 148 million individuals was taken. Even Microsoft has been a common target for these attempts before.
In the most recent attack on Microsoft Exchange, hackers were able to breach into the servers of various businesses and steal confidential files and targeted emails. NPR reports that it was discovered by a cybersecurity specialist who noticed that there was a sketchy entity requesting files that, under normal circumstances, wouldn’t be requested. Upon further investigation by MSTIC (Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center), it was found that a group called Hafnium was behind these attacks. Eventually, this exploit was used to hack into thousands of small business servers – the type that would be locally managed by an IT department in-house. This Chinese group usually targets medical companies, schools, and government agencies. After gathering the hacked info, new clues suggest that China may be using it to bolster its AI efforts by using real-life data to develop algorithms and fine-tune its artificial intelligence research.
How It Was Done
Most large-scale companies that use Microsoft Exchange rely on cloud servers, which by nature have heavy protection implemented on Microsoft’s end. Some companies use a hybrid version to maintain security at the local level and keep some information secure. Generally, those IT departments are fleshed out enough to handle attacks. On the lower level, small businesses will employ an IT department of a few people with a local server that houses everything needed. With that being the case, as well as being connected to the internet, Hafnium was able to break into these locally administrated servers with relative ease. They did this by exploiting errors in the server’s coding, allowing them to break in and eventually take control. Once in, these hackers programmed local servers to send information requests out for various personal and confidential files. On the other end, if a server receives a request from another trusted server, it will provide the information with no questions asked. By employing this tactic, the hackers were able to gather tons of information from small businesses.
In the past few years, AI development has been an increasing area of focus for China. In order to develop high-end artificial intelligence, real-world data is needed in order to feed the algorithms. In these attacks, this data was accessible to the hackers. Artificial intelligence is becoming more prevalent, dictating a lot of the digital processes users encounter daily like automated investing, social media, photo policing, and even digital assistants.
With the amount of data collected by the Chinese hacking group, the data available to build out China’s AI is plentiful. The specific goals China has for AI development are still unknown, and will likely stay that way for the time being. For now, the Microsoft Exchange exploit has been patched, but its long-term impacts remain a mystery.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/microsoft-exchange-hack-china-motive/