China (APT-10): According to sources close to the internal investigation of the Airbus cyber-attack it is currently believed that APT-10 from China was behind the attack. The full extent of the breach is still not fully known. However, it is clear that the attackers were looking to not only access personnel information, but technical aspects of European aircraft as well. According to the source, the attack methods used were extremely similar to the methods used by APT-10 in other attacks.
Analyst Notes
China has routinely carried out cyber-operations to steal industrial secrets from aerospace firms around the world. The accessing of personnel data is also unsurprising as Chinese hackers have been harvesting identity data more often over the past year–including the breach of Marriot’s systems, which is believed to likely be for utilization during further espionage operations in the future in both the real world and cyberspace.
