EU’s first cyber sanctions hit groups including Chinese spies, North Korean firm
- Two Chinese nationals were accused of involvement in ‘Operation Cloud Hopper’, which spied on cloud services providers in six continents
- North Korean firm Chosun Expo backed cyberattacks including WannaCry, and cyber robberies of Vietnamese and Bangladeshi banks
The six people and three groups hit with sanctions include Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency. EU headquarters blamed them in a statement for the 2017 “WannaCry” ransomware and “NotPetya” malware attacks and the “Cloud Hopper” cyber-espionage campaign.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the sanctions “are a travel ban and asset freeze to natural persons and an asset freeze to entities or bodies. It is also prohibited to directly or indirectly make funds available to listed individuals and entities or bodies”.
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Also sanctioned by the EU was the Chinese company Huaying Haitai, listed as Zhang’s employer.
The North Korean firm sanctioned is Chosun Expo, which the EU said backed cyberattacks including WannaCry, the hacking of Sony Pictures and cyber robberies of Vietnamese and Bangladeshi banks.
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“The consistent use of physical human intelligence teams to supplement its intrusion efforts makes the GRU a particularly effective adversary,” said John Hultquist, director of threat intelligence at FireEye.
“Sanctions may be particularly effective for disrupting this activity as they may hinder the free movement of this unit,” he said.