Advanced Persistent Threat 41 (APT41), a newly identified team of Chinese hackers, is carrying out political espionage for Beijing while simultaneously attacking businesses for personal financial gain, reported the Financial Times.
APT41, the hybrid group identified on Wednesday by US cyber security group FireEye, is described as a “creative and well-resourced” outfit that has been operating since 2012, eventually moving into state-backed espionage operations against the healthcare and high-tech sectors and political dissidents in 2014.
“This is remarkable because explicit financially motivated targeting is unusual among Chinese state-sponsored threat groups, and evidence suggests these two motivations were balanced concurrently from 2014 onward,” a FireEye report said.
The group’s espionage activities have taken place in 14 countries including the US, UK, Singapore, Japan and France.