The news will come as a devastating blow to Vladimir Putin, who has been watching… Beijing as a staunch ally in its fight against NATO and the West. Prior to his invasion of Ukraine, Russian President visited Beijing to meet with President Xi Jinping. At a subsequent press conference, the two leaders professed a “borderless friendship” and stated that there were “no forbidden areas” of cooperation.
However, it appears that Beijing has only paid lip service to its commitment to assist Putin.
New reports suggest that China has secretly stolen sensitive data from Russian defense companies.
Kaspersky Labs, a Russian cybersecurity company, claimed that the Chinese government-affiliated hacking group TA428 was behind numerous attacks on the Russian military-industrial complex.
The extensive wave of attacks was first detected in January and used new Windows malware to backdoor government agencies and organizations in the defense industry.
The hackers have successfully compromised the networks of dozens of targets and sometimes even took control of their entire IT infrastructure by hijacking systems used to manage security solutions.
Kaspersky researchers said: “The attack targeted industrial plants, design bureaus and research institutes, government agencies, ministries and departments in several Eastern European countries (Belarus, Russia and Ukraine), as well as Afghanistan.
“An analysis of information obtained during the investigation of the incidents indicates that cyber espionage was the target of this series of attacks.”
They confirmed that at least ten Russian companies had been affected by the attacks.
The hackers used spear-phishing emails containing confidential information about the targeted organizations and malicious code to deploy PortDoor malware.
Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has made Russians increasingly dependent on China – both economically and politically.
China has given Russia a market for its products after sanctions severely limited the country’s ability to sell its wares around the world.
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In an article for Foreign Affairs, the researcher outlined Putin’s weak position in future negotiations with China.
He wrote: “To keep China happy, Russian leaders will have little choice but to accept unfavorable terms in commercial negotiations, support Chinese positions in international forums such as the United Nations, and even Moscow’s relations with other countries, such as India, to curtail and Vietnamese.
“Russia is turning into a giant Eurasian Iran: fairly isolated, with a smaller and technologically more backward economy thanks to hostilities against the West, but still too big and important to be considered irrelevant.”
With China as Russia’s largest external partner and key diplomatic ally, Mr. Gabuev concluded: “The aging Kremlin ruling elite, myopic fixated on Washington, will be even more eager to serve as China’s handmaidens as it rises to defeat the arch-rival of the United States.”