Microsoft accuses China of cyber attacks against small nations, including Mauritius

In its latest Digital Defence Report of 2022, Microsoft has accused state-affiliated actors from China of cyber attacks targeting smaller nations, including Mauritius.

According to the report, Mauritius is among a list of small nations are allegedly the target of cyber espionage by Chinese state-affiliated actors for its global economic and military influence.

“The cyber attacks spanned across Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Oceania, and the global south, including Namibia, Mauritius, and Trinidad and Tobago, among others. Many of such attacks stem from China’s ability to find “zero-day vulnerabilities” – unpatched holes in software previously unknown to vendors,” India Today cited the report as claiming.

“With the growing cybersecurity measures across organisations, infiltrators discover new and unique methods to deliver attacks.”

“The identification and exploitation of unknown vulnerabilities or security flaws, glitches, or weaknesses found in software code is “zero-day vulnerability”.

“Once these newly acknowledged vulnerabilities are publicly exposed, they are commoditised and rapidly reused by other nation-states and criminal adversaries in a threat actor ecosystem.”

In the report published last week, Microsoft claimed an increased use of zero-day exploits by Chinese adversaries over the last year.

Source: India Today