Leaked Report: The United Nations Was Hacked
Last year in July 2019 hackers invaded UN’s computer network in Geneva and Vienna in a spying operation that the UN was silent about at the time. Now an internal document has been leaked to New Humanitarian journalists and has also been seen by The Associated Press.
Dozens of servers were hacked into including the UN Human Rights Office which collects data on human rights abuses by governments.
Asked about the intrusion, one UN official told the Associated Press that this was a sophisticated hack with the extent of damage unclear, especially in terms of personal, secret or compromising information that may have been stolen. A UN official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity to speak freely about the episode, said systems have since been reinforced. Given the high skill level, it is possible a state-backed actor was behind it, the official said. “It’s as if someone were walking in the sand, and swept up their tracks with a broom afterward,” the official added. “There’s not even a trace of a clean-up.”
The internal document from the UN Office of Information and Technology said 42 servers were “compromised” and another 25 were deemed “suspicious,” nearly all at the sprawling Geneva and Vienna offices.
Three of the “compromised” servers belonged to the Human Rights agency, which is located across town from the main UN office in Geneva, and two were used by the UN Economic Commission for Europe. A senior official called the attack a ‘major meltdown’.
The report says a flaw in Microsoft’s SharePoint software was exploited by the hackers to infiltrate the networks. However what type of malware was used is not known, nor had technicians identified the command and control servers on the internet used to exfiltrate information. Nor was it known what mechanism was used by the hackers to maintain their presence on the infiltrated networks.
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