Last month, unknown hackers targeted leaders of the exiled Uyghur community through a campaign involving Windows spyware, according to researchers on Monday.
Citizen Lab, a digital rights research group at the University of Toronto, outlined an espionage operation targeting members of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC). This organization represents the Muslim-minority group that has faced repression, discrimination, surveillance, and hacking from the Chinese government for years.
In mid-March, Google alerted some WUC members about the hacking campaign, prompting them to contact journalists and researchers at Citizen Lab, as reported.
Citizen Lab’s investigation revealed a targeted phishing email sent to WUC members. The email impersonated a trusted contact and included a Google Drive link to a password-protected compressed file containing a malicious version of a Uyghur language text editor.
The researchers indicated that the campaign was not particularly sophisticated and did not involve zero-day exploits or mercenary spyware. However, they noted that the “delivery of the malware exhibited a high level of social engineering, demonstrating the attackers’ deep understanding of the target community.”
