Chinese hackers spent four years inside Asian telco’s networks

Summary: A major Asian telecommunications company suffered a four-year-long breach by Chinese government-affiliated hackers known as “Weaver Ant.” The attackers compromised home routers from Zyxel to infiltrate the telco, utilizing various advanced tools and backdoors to maintain persistent access and extract sensitive information. Sygnia, the incident response firm, highlights the sophistication and stealthiness of the threat actors in their campaign targeting critical infrastructure.

Affected: Asian telecommunications company

Keypoints :

• Chinese government hackers, “Weaver Ant,” infiltrated a telecom network over four years using compromised Zyxel routers.
• The attackers employed the China Chopper web shell and other tools to maintain hidden access and lateral movement within the network.
• Sygnia discovered the breach during a separate incident investigation, revealing multiple layers of web shells that enabled prolonged espionage efforts.