,with Transcript
,
Transcript
operated a small Aviation company in
Canada despite being a small company
Steven worked tirelessly to establish
connections with American and Canadian
firms which gave him an extensive
network of business contacts but someone
was noticing his hard work the FBI the
people working with Steven had no idea
that the man they were dealing with
would have been involved in such a large
conspiracy because neither was he Steven
Sue nor or was he just a businessman his
real name was subin and he was on a
nasty mission in 2014 a criminal
complaint was filed against him in Los
Angeles in July of 2014 Sue was arrested
in Canada on a warrant issued in
relation to this case and was later
extradited to the US in 2016 where
51-year-old Sue finally admitted that he
was part of a conspiracy against the us
but the shocking part was in the details
the way this conspiracy was being
carried out and when Sue started
spilling the beans it shook the entire
nation as an entrepreneur the reason he
was working so hard to establish
connections within Canada and American
firms was not because he wanted to
expand his business but rather to assist
the people he was working for the ones
operating behind the scenes the
connections Sue was making weren't with
random firms but with top defense
contractors in the US and Canada who
produced some of of the most
sophisticated Weapons Systems on the
planet he even drew the attention of the
business Community through an article in
the Wall Street Journal on his business
model products and contacts within the
industry by 2013 Sue had also
established connections with GE Aviation
in Cincinnati a firm well known for its
Advanced turbofan Technologies and just
remember that name for now I'll soon
explain why it's
important remember we're going to expose
some very powerful forces and they might
suppress this video but you can help us
prevent this by tapping on that like
button below thank you but the question
is why was Sue so eager to establish
connections with the top defense firms
this is because Sue's job was to inform
his co-conspirators about whom to Target
which files to steal and why the
information they stole was significant
on top of that he even translated the
stolen information into Chinese and even
drafted formal reports on the material
they managed to steal he admitted that
from October of 2008 to March of 2014 he
conspired with two hackers to gain
unauthorized access to protected
computer networks in the United States
including the ones belonging to the
boing company California to obtain
sensitive military information he
revealed that they stole 630,000 files
from Boeing which is a massive 65 GB of
data related to the c17 heavy lift cargo
aircraft using the information he had
gained through his business contacts the
c17 glob Master is is the US Air Force's
primary Transport Aircraft but Sue and
his hacker friends had the rise set on
an even bigger Target the most
sophisticated fighter jets on the planet
they were now targeting locked Martin's
F-22 Raptor and F35 lightning 2 the best
fighter jets produced to date for at
least 6 Years Sue and his team of
hackers accessed tens of thousands of
files related to the stealth fighter
programs and the reason it took six long
years for us intelligence to catch subin
was because he and his Partners were
extremely smart and they knew how to
outsmart the authorities Sue and his
Partners not only put in a lot of effort
to steal the information but they also
worked equally hard to hide their tracks
and for this they employed a tactic
known as hop points these are
compromised or purchased networks in
various thirdparty countries that mask
the true origin of the infiltration for
example a hacker in China might use a
server in Brazil as a hop Point make
making it appear as though the Cyber
attack originated in Brazil rather than
China this tactic helped them hide their
true location and hence evade detection
this is why FBI Counter Intelligence
experts had to trace their activities
through multiple Nations to identify the
actual source and after a lot of hard
work he was finally caught during the
investigation in a 2011 email presented
as evidence Sue bragged to his
associates that the information they had
stolen from the F-22 and F35 programs
would allow us to rapidly catch up with
with us levels to stand easily on the
Giant's shoulders but what exactly was
he referring to and who was The
Mastermind behind this conspiracy let's
address something that's been on my mind
before we move forward after watching my
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the QR code on the screen all right now
let's get back to the topic at hand when
I started digging deeper into similar
missions I came across a report by the
American cyber security firm mandiant
Solutions since 2004 mandiant has
investigated several computer security
breaches at hundreds of organizations
around the world Mandan successfully
tracked many hacker groups and even
identified one that was the most active
and successful they named it
AP1 for now just remember this name
we'll explain what it means shortly but
what surprised me was the location of
the hackers in fact the location mandant
traced it back to was most likely the
same place where subin's conspirators
were operating from the images of the
building known as unit
61398 looked something like this the
mandant team even mentioned the address
of the building which was unit
61398 datong Road 208 pong new area
Shanghai and you know where Shanghai is
in the People's Republic of
China but the details they uncovered and
who they were working for left them
shocked because they weren't just random
hackers doing it for money they were
operating in a highly organized manner
in fact based on the size of unit 61398
physical infrastructure mandiant
estimated that the unit is staffed by
hundreds and perhaps thousands of people
so just to give you some context the
building you just saw is estimated to
have offices for about 2,000 people the
scary part is this is only one of the
unit's several buildings and some of
them are even larger turns out that the
people in these buildings were working
for a segment of the Chinese military
called The People's Liberation Army
general staff departments third
Department second Bure otherwise known
as unit
61398 several hundreds of people who
worked there were were responsible for
several things that included military
reconnaissance electronic warfare and
even writing propaganda comments on
social media in fact all this was being
executed in such an organized manner
that there were University recommended
courses for students willing to apply
for positions in unit
61398 and even job listings for hacking
roles in this unit the former employees
even included the hacking achievements
in their CVS and one hacker even
published a scientific paper on his
hacking techniques as I mentioned AP1
wasn't the only group that was involved
in hacking there are or at least were
more than 20 AP groups originating from
China with AP1 being one of them now
this might surprise you but these groups
have played a critical role in making
China a superpower but you may ask what
exactly is AP and how did they make
China a superpower an AP or advanced
persistent threat is a Cyber attack
where the attacker gains and maintains
long-term unauthorized access to a
computer network without being detected
and the primary purpose of these hackers
is to mine highly sensitive data but for
what the first public appearance of its
latest stealth fighter the Chang Du j20
was the star of the show China's touting
the new aircraft as being undetectable
by radar and a competitor to the US
Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor in March
2014 China unveiled its fifth generation
fighter aircraft the j20 this initially
looked like just a normal event but when
pictures of the new j20 first surfaced
on the internet they raised eyebrows
among anyone with even a basic knowledge
of modern defense equipment its looks
design and features shocked the entire
world especially the us maybe some us
officials even anticipated it and if you
haven't heard of the j20 here's what it
looks like and this is what the world's
most advanced Fighters the F22 and the
F35 look like can you spot the
difference between them I don't think
there are that many differences they
both look exactly the same this might be
a coincidence but when so many
coincidences occur and the timelines of
multiple events overlap it's hard to
believe this was all just a
coincidence don't believe me we'll have
a look in 2008 China began developing
its first stealth fighter under project
718 with the primary goal of competing
with Western Jets the development
contract was awarded to Chung du
Aerospace Corporation but surprisingly
2008 was the same year in which Sue
began working with the two hackers
employed by the Chinese people's
Liberation Army later in 2009 six
current and former government officials
even confirmed that the Joint Strike
Fighter program that produced the F-35
had been accessed multiple times by
unknown hackers they managed to secure
several terabytes of information
regarding the aircraft's design and
systems in fact Pentagon officials
mentioned that the hackers were so
expert that they used a method that
encrypted the data as they were stealing
it which made it very difficult to
evaluate what exactly had been stolen
and this was just the beginning after
this Espionage attack things started
taking a weird turn in 2011 when the j20
fighter design that was under
development since 2008 suddenly adopted
several significant and stealthy changes
by the way if you remember this was the
same year when Sue sent that email to
his Chinese contacts mentioning that the
information they stole from the F22 and
F35 programs would allow them to rapidly
catch up with the US levels and stand
easily on the Giants shoulders a year
later a fighter jet similar to that of
the F-35 which China named the Shenyang
j31 took its first flight in 2012 by
2013 Sue had also established
connections with GE Aviation the same
company we mentioned in the beginning
and I asked you to remember because this
was the same company who was competing
against Pratt and Whitney to provide its
Advanced engines to the F22 and F35
fighter jets although both the F-22 and
F-35 are powered by Pratt and Whitney
it's worth noting that ge's proposal for
the F22 Raptor engine was actually a
more advanced and capable design than
Pratt and Whitney's it's just that Pratt
and Whitney's YF 1119 engine was chosen
because of its Simplicity and its more
mature improving technology finally 2014
as we saw China's new and improved j20
design finally emerged this was the same
year when subin was caught and he pretty
much succeeded in his job China might
claim that these similarities between
the j20 Shenyang j31 and the US F-22 and
F35 jets are just
coincidences but now you know the story
behind these so-called coincidences but
something was missing even after so many
coincidences and allegations leveled
that China the US military denied
everything for a very long period of
time until January of 2015 because this
was when documents leaked by Edward
Snowden became the first public
confirmation that the F-35 was stolen by
the
Chinese and they stole the world's most
advanced fighter jet the US made F35 and
F22 not by a daring Maverick or by an
undercover agent but by sending a few
emails to Lockheed Martin employees
pretending to be their coworker
according to sources this data breach
already took place in
2007 another document leaked by
Wikileaks exposed details about
Byzantine Hades the name us
investigators gave the attackers they
traced back to China to be more specific
Trace back to a unit of the Chinese
people's Liberation Army the same report
mentions about 30,000 hacking incidents
which includes 500 major breaches in
Department of Defense systems compromise
of more than 600,000 user accounts
accounts over 300,000 user ID passwords
and even records of 33,000 US Air Force
officers were compromised the total data
extracted from all these hacking
incidences was nearly 50 terabytes the
overall damage was estimated to be more
than1
million later in 2016 we saw even more
public confirmations one of which was
subin admitting involvement in a
conspiracy but even after so many
conspiracies the CCP could never
replicate these Jets or even other
Technologies exactly as they are and
this is because of a very simple reason
before you understand this reason you
must know what made these Technologies
vulnerable to hackers if you consider
the case of the F22 and the F35 these
aircraft weren't built or developed
entirely by locked Martin alone both of
these Fighters are the result of
collaboration among many contractors and
subcontractors with design details
shared across different companies to
ensure smooth Manufacturing
so it was easy to Target just one of the
contractors and get access to the design
however most of the confidential systems
developed for the aircraft are kept
isolated from broader network access to
prevent security breaches so accessing
them is almost impossible this is why
even though their jets look very similar
to us ones they have a lot of
differences in their performance
parameters and on the majority of the
parameters the original technology turns
out to be far superior to the copied
Chinese weapons anyway this allowed the
Chinese military to reverse engineer
various aircraft components which would
otherwise have cost millions of dollars
to develop from scratch this approach
saved not only money but also
significant amount of time in research
and development in fact it's not just
the US that's on China's radar China
steals technology from any country that
could benefit it and I mean any country
including its closest allies if you've
seen our previous video on how China
cunningly replicates weapon technology
then you know exactly what I'm talking
about but didn't I say that China became
a superpower using this method you might
be wondering how stealing just military
technology could have made China a
superpower well it's a crucial part of
becoming a superpower it's not the only
Factor right what you're thinking is
completely right but did I say that
China was only targeting defense Secrets
absolutely not because whatever I
mentioned about the Chinese hacking was
just the tip of the iceberg the Dark
Secrets I discovered apart from the
defense hacking is worrisome for
literally every one of us in fact a
former senior official at mkfi said the
scariest line he said I divide the
entire set of Fortune Global 2000 firms
into two categories those that know
they've been compromised and those that
don't know it yet you will understand
the depth of this line as we move
forward I mentioned earlier that
everything these hackers do is in an
extremely organized way everything is
planned communicated and executed
properly and I mean so systematically
that even the government is involved in
this in fact there is a way you can
predict what companies and sectors could
be their next Targets this is by reading
their 5-year plan these plans are a
series of Social and economic
development initiatives issued by the
CCP in fact according to mandiant the
industries AP1 targeted match the
industries that China has identified as
strategic to their growth including four
of the seven strategic emerging
industries that China identified in its
12th 5-year plan basically China lists
everything it wants to achieve or
improve in its 5-year plans one such
thing that China wanted to achieve was
mentioned in their 13th 5-year plan this
plan included everything China wanted to
achieve from 2016 to 2020 including the
development of necessary infrastructure
factories and systems in China to
mass-produce their own large and
Regional passenger planes this is
because China saw a huge opportunity in
the large commercial plane Market Airbus
and Boeing combined control 99% of this
market so China decided to develop such
planes indigenously sell them for cheap
and capture a chunk of this Market they
even made an impressive start when its
state-owned Aerospace company comac
built the first prototype in 2015 they
named it comac
c919 but as always it came came with
that typical Chinese charm and no I'm
not talking about Winnie the Pooh I'm
talking about flaws that come with every
Chinese technology because of the delays
due to design flaws This Plane took two
long years just to complete its first
Maiden flight in
2017 anyways it was a great deal because
comac became one of the select companies
that had the ability to manufacture
large commercial planes and that too
roughly at half the cost of its
competitors this aircraft seemed like a
great achievement but the reality was
Far different actually comac procured
60% of the c919 parts from us aerospace
companies basically comac received
collaboration from us companies but
sources claimed that something was fishy
and more than just collaboration this is
because in a 2019 report a cyber
security technology company crowd strike
accus the Chinese government of stealing
technology through spying in fact a
Chinese intelligence officer was even
trying to steal one of the most
sensitive pieces of information actually
this was the most satisfying thing I've
read no I'm not talking about the
Espionage but rather how the Spy was
caught by the FBI and trust me it was no
less thrilling than a Hollywood movie Su
yanjun a Chinese intelligence officer
was trying to steal information from GE
Aviation actually this was one of the
companies that provided engines to
Airbus and Boeing aircrafts he was
trying to steal GE aviation's exclusive
composite aircraft engine fan module
this technology is so complex that no
other company in the world has been able
to replicate it Shu tries to set a trap
he has his eyes set on a GE Aviation
employee in March 2017 Shu invited this
person to give a talk at a Chinese
University the employee accepts and
travels to China in May upon arrival he
meets Jew who covers all his travel
expenses these were likely some trust
building activities the employee
delivers his presentation and returns
home home but he had no idea about the
real intentions of Shu in January 2018
Shu asked the employee for some
sensitive information and because there
was already so much trust between them
the employee emailed a two-page document
from the company that was marked as
confidential Shu wanted more so he
suggested meeting the employee in Europe
and asked for more company files
surprisingly the employee agreed and Shu
traveled to Belgium in April of 2018 to
meet with him he also brought some cash
for their meeting but to his surprise he
was arrested by authorities when he
arrived he had no idea how he got
exposed in reality Shu had no clue that
the FBI had taken control of the
situation long before he could even
suspect it actually after the employee
returned from China the FBI took over
the communication and it was the FBI who
was pretending to be the employee every
conversation shoe thought he was having
with the employee was actually with the
FBI in fact sending the confidential
information via email was also part of
the FBI's trap finally he was extradited
to the United States where he was
sentenced to 20 years in prison the
prosecutors even stated that the two
state-owned companies involved in the
c919 developments received technical
information from Shu but do you know
that China has a no discrimination
policy it believes in unity in diversity
this is why it doesn't discriminate
between defense Industries high-tech
Industries real estate oil and natural
gas pipeline operators government
agencies Etc it steals everything it can
get from multiple organizations multiple
countries and almost every sector you
could imagine in fact the Chinese
hackers even targeted the international
Olympic Committee and the world
anti-doping agency around the 2008
Beijing Olympics a report identified
nine AP groups responsible for some of
the largest hacking operations from 2006
to 2015 not surprisingly all of them
originated from the same country China
One of the earliest operations that
shocked everyone was Operation Shady rat
where rat stands for remote access tool
mkfi the organization that investigated
this operation identified a command and
control server used by The Intruders by
monitoring the server they tracked the
activities of the Hackers from 2006 to
2011 identifying numerous victim
organizations when mfei finally
published the report it shocked the
world the hackers targeted 71
institutions across 14 different
countries the main objective of the
attackers in operation Shady rat was to
infiltrate systems gain unauthorized
access and then maintain that access
over an extended period of time this
allowed them to continuously extract
sensitive data and monitor the
activities of the victim organizations
without detection yeah you heard that
right the scariest part was the victims
were not even aware that they'd been
hacked and the hackers were stealing
sensitive data from their systems the
shortest time that an organization
remained compromised was less than a
single month and the longest mkfi
reported was about 28 months but the
scariest one was the one mandiant
reported because even they were tracking
a hacker group named AP1 they tracked
from 2006 to
2013 they found that AP1 hacked 1141
companies over 20 major industries the
most shocking part is that AP1 managed
to maintain access to one of the
victim's networks for a whopping
1,764 days or about 4 years and 10
months I mean can you imagine your
computer has been hacked and for the
past 5 years hackers have been
extracting all your sensitive data
without you even knowing it seems pretty
scary right once they gain access the
hackers periodically revisit the
victim's network over several months or
years stealing a wide range of
intellectual property including
technology blueprints proprietary
manufacturing processes test results
business plans pricing documents
partnership agreements and emails and
contact lists from the organization's
leadership mandiant reported that AP1
stole hundreds of terabytes of data from
2006 to 2013 the mandiant report
believes that the stolen information was
used to benefit the PRC and Chinese
state-owned Enterprises for example in
2008 AP1 breached the network of a
company in the wholesale industry over
the next 2 and a half years AP1 sto an
unknown number of files from the victim
and repeatedly accessed the email
accounts of several Executives including
the CEO and general counsel surprisingly
during the same period major news
organizations reported that China
successfully negotiated a double-digit
price reduction per unit with the victim
Organization for one of its major
Commodities while this might be purely
coincidental the timing suggests that
the stolen data likely played a
significant role in that
negotiation operations like shady rat
and similar ones proved extremely
beneficial for China they helped China
acquire important trade secret which
contributed to its rise as a major
Global power but what exactly did the
hackers do to break the
systems the hackers used a very simple
method to hack into systems something
even you might have experienced the
hackers pose as a coworker and send an
email with a malicious link or
attachment to the person they are
targeting if the attachment is opened it
installs a malicious software into the
system the hackers then take control of
the infected computer and steal the
important data they were targeting in
the earlier years the Chinese hackers
didn't worry about being tracked and
didn't take much effort to hide their
origin as a result it was easier to
trace them back to their origin but as
the years passed the hackers became more
careful and made more efforts to make
sure that they weren't traced back
easily even the motive of the attacks
changed with time initially the hackers
aimed to Target as many victims as
possible and steal as much information
as they could over time their goal
shifted to maintaining access for as
long as possible ensuring they could
retrieve information whenever needed
lastly just remember to verify any link
or attachment you click on who knows you
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