China’s Ministry of State Security has spent the week warning of backdoored devices on land and at sea.
On Monday, the Ministry used its WeChat channel to publish a lengthy warning about backdoors in devices and supply chain attacks on software.
The post explains that some developers and manufacturers install backdoors as innocent tools to allow maintenance, but that criminals later use them for nefarious purposes.
The Ministry is less kind about supply chain attacks on software, which it says criminals carry out specifically to implement backdoors.
Whatever the source of backdoors, the Ministry’s remedy is simple: avoid foreign technology products and buy local instead.
Which is ironic given that China routinely watches everything its citizens do online.
A Wednesday post from the Ministry alleges foreign powers may also try to create backdoors in China’s ocean observation sensors to covertly steal the data they collect.
“In recent years, foreign spy intelligence agencies have been extending their evil hands to this pure blue area, taking various measures to strengthen reconnaissance and monitoring of my country’s waters, and carrying out a series of intelligence collection and technology theft activities, threatening China’s national security,” the post states.
The Ministry also accuses foreign espionage agencies of using “special technical devices hidden in our waters” and claims “When Chinese fishermen were fishing at sea, they accidentally salvaged a new underwater stealing device that was deployed in our waters by a certain country. The device secretly collected hydrological information of the surrounding ocean and data on the activities of various ships.”
The Ministry has made similar claims in the past, but this time added an accusation that “a certain marine public welfare organization” used the pretext of “providing data to relevant departments” and instead collected marine data along China’s coastline for other purposes.
The Register has no idea which organization the Ministry is referring to, but it is not unusual for China to accuse an international organization – like the International Maritime Organization, which surveys and charts the world’s oceans – of bias and improper activities that threaten China’s national security.
Both of the Ministry’s posts call on Chinese citizens to educate themselves about infosec risks, be vigilant, and report their suspicions to authorities. ®
