State sponsored hacking

We all are very familiar with security breaches that stole passwords, financial data including bank account and other sensitive information from personal computers. One can use the illegally obtained information for financial gains such as credit card purchases and withdrawal from bank accounts. Same can be true for governments who are looking to take advantage of illegally obtained information. So, state sponsored hacking is becoming a big threat for many countries.

China has been suspected of state sponsored hacking for many years. A specific vulnerability hidden in HTML has been used by a group known as Comment Group for many years to spy on governments.

It has been revealed that the Comment Group hacked the European Union (EU) computers to obtain information about the Greece bailout by the EU. Early knowledge of impending bailout could be used for financial gain. The Comment Group hijack an unsuspected computer to enter into the EU computers to obtain passwords and e-mails and monitor the activity for weeks at a time. The Comment Group also entered into other government computers outside the EU.

Many governments including the EU are using dedicated computers to communicate sensitive information so that hackers are unable to enter into these computers or obtain sensitive information.