Nov 27, 2023 11:19:00

It turns out that a Chinese hacker was able to hide in the network of a major semiconductor company for more than two years and successfully steal chip designs

A cybercrime group linked to the Chinese government has been found to have been accessing the network of Dutch semiconductor company NXP and stealing data for more than two years, Dutch news media NRC reports. . The cybercrime group had access to NRC's systems through employee accounts.

Chinese hackers hadden ruim twee jaar onopgemerkt toegang tot netwerk NXP - NRC

https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2023/11/25/chipindustrie-chinese-hackers-hadden-ruim-twee-jaar-onopgemerkt-toegang-tot-netwerk-nxp-a4182246

Chinese hackers steal chip designs from major Dutch semiconductor company — perps lurked for over two years to steal NXP's chipmaking IP: Report | Tom's Hardware
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/chinese-hackers-steal-chip-designs-from-major-dutch-semiconductor-company

NXP is a company with the highest market value in the European semiconductor industry after ASML , and mainly manufactures semiconductors for the automobile industry, semiconductors for public transportation, and contactless payment chips for iPhones.

According to the NRC, Chinese cyber spies used

brute force attacks to access employee email addresses based on credentials obtained from data breaches at LinkedIn and Facebook in late 2017. From there, it is believed that they accessed NXP's servers based on information obtained from the mailbox. Furthermore, by changing the phone number, two-factor authentication was bypassed, and the cyber spy was said to be taking out encrypted files uploaded to online cloud storage such as OneDrive, Dropbox, and Google Drive every few weeks until early 2020. .

The cyber espionage attack on NXP went undetected for approximately two and a half years. However, in early 2020, it was discovered that the reservation system of Transavia, a subsidiary of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, had been accessed in a similar manner. It has also been revealed that it has been hacked.

In 2018 and 2019, seven Taiwanese semiconductor companies were attacked by the same cybercrime group, and their chip designs and source code were stolen. The Dutch intelligence agency AIVD has warned that China is using cyber espionage to steal high-tech intellectual property.

Regarding the unauthorized access, NXP said in its annual report, ``Although intellectual property was stolen, no significant damage was caused.The stolen data is encrypted and the chip design is difficult to replicate.'' It is stated in the book. Additionally, the company said it will strengthen its network security and monitoring systems and put tighter controls on access and transfer of internal data.