Canadian researchers have uncovered an electronic spy network based in China, which has infiltrated computers in government offices around the world and Malta is on the list of victims.
The investigation by the Information Warfare Monitor revealed that the criminal network infiltrated 1,295 computers in 103 countries. It seems the hackers were able to take control of computers belonging to several foreign ministries and embassies across the world using malicious software, known as malware.
Researchers called the spy network GhostNet. An abstract of the report, called The Snooping Dragon: Social Malware Surveillance Of The Tibetan Movement, was posted on IWM's website.
Over the past six months, Malta's government IT agency (Mita) suffered at least two major cyber attacks. It is unclear whether these incidents had anything to do with the spy network uncovered by IWM. Questions sent to Mita remained unanswered at the time of writing.
In September, almost 20,000 government passwords were believed to have been compromised in an internet attack that was traced back to the Maltese embassy in Cairo.
Earlier this month, the embassies server maintained by Mita suffered another attack. Mita had said that it identified "unauthorised software" on the embassies server, which stores the user credentials of personnel in Maltese embassies.
The agency had reported that no data was extracted.
The 10-month IWM international investigation was requested by the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, to check whether the computers of his Tibetan exile network had been infiltrated.
There was no evidence that China's government was behind the spy-ring. The Chinese government also denied involvement.
Researchers found that the ministries of foreign affairs of Iran, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, Barbados and Bhutan were targeted.
Hacked systems were also discovered in the embassies of India, South Korea, Indonesia, Romania, Cyprus, Malta, Thailand, Taiwan, Portugal, Germany and Pakistan.
By installing malware on compromised computers, hackers were able to take control of them to send and receive classified data.
The software also gave hackers the ability to use audio and video recording devices to monitor the rooms the computers were in. But investigators said they did not know whether or not this element had been used.
IWM comprises researchers from Ottawa-based think tank SecDev Group and the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies.
ksansone@timesofmalta.com