Google announced on Wednesday that it had thwarted operations conducted by a hacking group linked to China, which had breached at least 53 organizations in 42 countries around the world.
The company, in findings shared exclusively with Reuters, stated that the hacking group, tracked under the names “UNC2814” and “Gallium,” has a history of about a decade targeting government organizations and telecommunications companies.
John Hultquist, the head of threat analysis at Google, said, “This was a massive espionage operation, spying on people and organizations around the world.”
Google explained that in cooperation with unnamed partners, it terminated the Google Cloud projects that the group was controlling, identified and disabled the internet infrastructure it used, and terminated the accounts used to access Google spreadsheets, which were employed in targeting operations and data theft.
The company indicated that the use of Google spreadsheets by the group enabled them to evade detection and blend their activity within the normal network traffic, simultaneously affirming that this activity did not constitute a breach of any of Google's own products.
Charlie Snyder, the senior director at the threat analysis group, stated that the group had confirmed access to 53 entities whose names have not been disclosed in 42 countries, with potential access to entities in at least 22 other countries at the time their operations were disrupted.
The spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy, Liu Bingyu, stated in a response that “Cybersecurity represents a common challenge faced by all nations, and should be addressed through dialogue and cooperation.”
He added that “China consistently opposes hacking activities and combats them in accordance with the law, and at the same time strongly rejects attempts to use cybersecurity issues to smear China's reputation or make unfounded accusations against it.”
Google said that these activities differ from the prominent Chinese hacking campaigns focused on wired and wireless communications, known as “Salt Typhoon” or “Salt Typhoon.”
The company explained that this campaign, which the U.S. government linked to China, targeted hundreds of American organizations and prominent political figures in the United States.
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