Atasez o traducere neoficiala a unui fragment din raportul anual al Serviciului de informatii din Cehia pe 2019 despre activitatile de spionaj si influenta chineze.
Este un foarte bun exemplu de abordare profesionista si responsabila fata de cetateni si beneficiari. Spune cat trebuie sa spuna, sugereaza cat trebuie sa fie sugerat si protejeaza ce trebuie sa fie protejat.
Un asemenea text nu veti citi niciodata intr-un raport al Serviciului Roman de Informatii.
Textul raportului integral in ceha il gasiti aici.
Fragmentul cu traducere neoficiala este acesta.
Chinese intelligence services
In 2019, members of the civil intelligence of the Ministry of State were mainly active in the Czech Republic Security Council (MSS) and Military Intelligence (MID). Party organization Department for International Relations on the one hand, it followed the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (OMSÚV) in the Czech environment official contacts, on the other hand, it used intelligence methods to fulfill its goals.
Chinese intelligence services used traditional cover (diplomats, journalists, academics) as well as modern methods of intelligence work (eg social networks), were interested in various fields and used the openness of the Czech environment to offer Chinese investment. Their interest focused on the broad spectrum of fields, be it technological topics, military, security, infrastructure projects, health care, economics, environment, or topics of international and domestic policy.
Chinese actors – reporters, diplomats, members of party organizations and others – searched the Czech Republic ways to influence public opinion, spread Chinese propaganda and build a positive image of the PRC through open and covert influencing of media content.
Dissemination of positive articles about the PRC was not only aimed at building Chinese activities in favor environment and open the door for Chinese expansion, but at the same time it should affect Chinese readers as well the texts were printed in Chinese periodicals and presented as the opinion of the Czech established media, therefore as an opinion of the whole Czech Republic. Cooperation between the Czech and Chinese media was often ensured by members ZS PRC. The Czech media thus became an instrument of the People’s Republic of China to spread Chinese influence.
In 2019, the intelligence services of the PRC were intensively involved in the academic sphere. Within development of cooperation with the PRC, projects for the exchange of students and researchers were created, opening of joint research centers, mutual assistance in one’s own scientific research, etc.
Czech academics received numerous invitations to trainings, conferences and meetings held in the PRC, which was paid by the Chinese side. Due to the fact that the PRC prefers to make an intelligence contact on in their territory, or in a third country (ie never in the country of origin of the person concerned), these may be: events used to address the person of interest by the IB of the PRC.
Unless there is a direct news coverage address, the PRC may include participation in various cooperation platforms in its propaganda narrative, or at least to take advantage of the obligations that will arise for Chinese hospitality.
The academic sphere is generally a sensitive space, which can be for its openness the subject of interest of intelligence services, as well as other influential actors. Due to the political organization of the PRC and Chinese law is the border of a free academic environment and state interests considerably out of focus. Reveal a member of the IB of the PRC or a person acting in favor of the IB of the PRC under the academic one coverage is therefore very difficult, even taking into account the fact that persons tied to the IB of the PRC usually they tend to be experienced researchers under the auspices of important institutions. In general, academics for which there is a suspicion of links to the IB of the PRC, or these links have been confirmed, they are expanding their scientific work on the collection of information in the areas of interest of the IB of the PRC, ie on the topics of domestic and foreign defense policy and force corps, technologies, industry, infrastructure and energy projects, etc.
Russian and Chinese cyber espionage activities
In 2019, the BIS followed up on an earlier investigation into the compromise of the Ministry’s unclassified network Foreign Affairs (MFA) cyber-espionage campaign, supported by a group working for a foreign power, with a high probability of the Russian Federation.
During the year, the ongoing compromise of the mentioned network and malware was revealed attributed to a cyber espionage group of another state actor.
Cyber attacks by state actors did not escape the embassies of the Czech Republic abroad either. In 2019, two cases of their compromise were uncovered.
In addition to the above, in the second half of the year the BIS also participated in the investigation of the attack ICT infrastructure of one of the Czech diplomatic missions in an international organization. At least one thing the device was compromised at the end of 2018 as part of an intense worldwide wave of attacks cyber espionage campaigns of a foreign state actor, most likely again the Russian Federation.
The infection occurred by opening a text document in an attack phishing email attachment. A detailed analysis showed that the compromised facility had already been attacked in previous years as well as malware associated with a cyber-spy group of another state actor.
In September 2019, the BIS obtained information about the infiltration of probably a Chinese cyber espionage group into Avast antivirus infrastructure. Based on the initiative of the BIS, the company began to audit extensively its entire internal network and revealed a serious compromise. Cooperation with BIS enabled Avast take extensive security measures and ultimately contribute to the protection of users’ data.
The most common way of attacks by state actors attacking not only Czech targets were unambiguously phishing / spear-phishing emails containing a compromised attachment (eg a document containing a macro). In this way, the attackers tried to deliver malicious code to user equipment without its significant cause. In one case, use was also recorded hidden element directly in the body of the phishing e-mail aimed at downloading the malicious one code from a link that was not visible to the user.
