Attackers breached Nortel and had free rein to spy on its internal network and communications from 2000 to 2009, according to an internal report. As usual, China is the prime suspect.
Chinese hackers allegedly breached telecommunications company Nortel in 2000 and these cyber-spies gained access to reams of sensitive technical documents, as well as internal communications and email, for nearly 10 years, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
The attackers, suspected of being based in China, breached the network using stolen credentials and installed spying software deep within the company’s networking environment to gain access to all documents and communications, the Journal reported Feb. 14. The breach appears to date as far back as 2000, Brian Shields, the former senior advisor for systems security at Nortel who led the internal investigation, told the paper.
