Japan’s Defence Ministry probes possible leak of technical details of a new, state-of-the-art missile in a large-scale cyber attack against Mitsubishi Electric Corp, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter.
The sources said the hackers appeared to be targeting the defense industry, specifically information about hypersonic glide missiles. Japan has been researching such missiles since fiscal 2018, the newspaper said.
The ministry suspects hackers got their hands on performance requirements that were sent to several defence-industry companies as part of the bidding process for the project. Mitsubishi Electric did not win the bid for the prototype, the newspaper said.
Although the data that allegedly leaked was not classified as top secret, it was still “sensitive information related to the future of Japan’s defense capability,” the source said.
The stolen specifications likely included such information as the range of the missile, the required level of heat resistance and propulsion, the newspaper said.
Mitsubishi Electric had discovered the hack during an internal investigation last year. The hackers compromised Mitsubishi Electric’s network via flaws in software installed on the company’s computers and through communications equipment of affiliated companies in China.
As for the culprits behind the hack, reports suggest that Mitsubishi Electric may have been struck by the Chinese cyber espionage groups known as Tick (APT40 or Bronze Butler) and Black Tech. It is believed that both groups are related to Chinese military, with Black Tech having close ties to a military unit based in Wuhan and Tick working with a unit based in Shanghai.