By Jenni Ryall From Mashable

A group of hackers with connections to the Chinese government have targeted Australian media organisations in the lead-up to the G20, a security company claims.

Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of U.S. computer security firm CrowdStrike, told the ABC’s 7.30 Report there has been heightened activity on the websites of Australian media organisations in the last few weeks by a group known as Deep Panda.

The group typically goes “after very strategic interests for the Chinese government,” Alperovitch said about the hackers, who came to prominence after they hacked into U.S. think tanks to search for information on America’s involvement in Iraq. “[They’re looking for] questions they can expect from Australian reporters, what type of coverage, positive or negative, they can expect to see.”

Alperovitch said Crowdstrike is also watching another Beijing-based group, named Vixen Panda, that is focussed on Australia. He said his research has led him to believe Vixen Panda is connected to China’s People’s Liberation Army’s security agency, the Third Department.

“You have a unit of the Chinese military conducting espionage against Australian Government… and the information that they’re stealing is being passed on through the military chain to the leadership of the Chinese government,” he told the ABC.

Although, CrowdStrike have ex-FBI and ex-McAfee employees on board, the company has been criticised for its methods and questioned on whether it is acting above the law in their fight against hackers.

The company claims they track activity by using sensors that are “deployed on Windows and Mac servers, desktops, and laptops” and “able to do real-time detection and recording of all adversary activities taking place on the system.” Alperovitch did not reveal the local organisations targeted due to security reasons.

In response to initial claims of attack by CrowdStrike in July, press counselor for China’s embassy in Washington, Geng Shuang, denied Deep Panda was linked to any officials, claiming the company was attempting to get publicity, Fairfax Media reported.

“The blog post seems like an ad for CrowdStrike, which has been alarming people on the threat in cyberspace for quite some time. I surmise it has been helpful to their business,” Geng said at the time.

IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES

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