A Chinese state-aligned hacking group used an AI-driven penetration testing tool to compromise IT services firm ConnectWise as part of a campaign that targeted hundreds of organizations globally, Microsoft said on Wednesday.
\n\nBased on Microsoft's analysis and evidence available to ConnectWise, "it appears that a China state-aligned group was responsible for the attack on ConnectWise Cloud Backup," ConnectWise CEO Manny Rivelo said in a separate statement.
\n\nRivelo said ConnectWise "contained the affected application connections and are restoring services in controlled phases," and that "those actions do not remove unauthorized access that may have already been established within individual customer tenants, which require separate review."
\n\nA spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said China "opposes and fights hacking activities in accordance with the law. At the same time, we oppose smears and attacks against China under the excuse of cybersecurity issues."
\n\nThe hackers, which Microsoft tracks as Storm-0940, used an open-source penetration testing framework called ARTEX to carry out the campaign, Microsoft said.
\n\nThere are multiple tools used to conduct penetration testing, a form of legitimate testing of the security of networks or services. ARTEX allows users to use any AI model to automate a variety of penetration testing tasks…
Original source: https://www.cnbctv18.com/technology/
