Beijing, June 25: A suspected Chinese state-sponsored hacking group has stepped up its targeting of Taiwanese organisations, particularly those in sectors such as government, education, technology and diplomacy, according to cybersecurity intelligence company Recorded Future.In recent years, relations between China and Taiwan, a self-governed island across the Taiwan Strait that Beijing claims as its territory, have deteriorated.
The cyberattacks by the group known as RedJulliett were observed between November 2023 and April 2024, during the lead up to Taiwan’s presidential elections in January and the subsequent change in administration.
RedJuliett has targeted Taiwanese organisations in the past, but this is the first time that activity was seen at such a scale, a Recorded Future analyst said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of safety concerns.
The report said RedJuliett attacked 24 organisations, including government agencies in places like Laos, Kenya and Rwanda, as well as Taiwan.
It also hacked into websites of religious organisations in Hong Kong and South Korea, a US university and a Djiboutian university. The report did not identify the organisations.
Recorded Future said RedJuliett accessed the servers of those places via a vulnerability in their SoftEther enterprise virtual private network (VPN) software, an open-source VPN that allows remote connections to an organisation’s networks.
RedJuliett has been observed attempting to break into systems of more than 70 Taiwanese organisations including three universities, an optoelectronics company and a facial recognition company that has contracts with the government.
It was unclear if RedJuliett managed to break into those organisations: Recorded Future only said it observed the attempts to identify vulnerabilities in their networks.
RedJuliett’s hacking patterns match those of Chinese state-sponsored groups, according to Recorded Future.
It said that based on the geolocations of IP addresses, RedJulliett is likely based out of the city of Fuzhou, in China’s southern Fujian province, whose coast faces Taiwan.
“Given the close geographical proximity between Fuzhou and Taiwan, Chinese intelligence services operating in Fuzhou are likely tasked with intelligence collection against Taiwanese targets,” the report said.