This topic will be a trip down memory lane to some of us – those who remember how during the early years of the last decade hackers from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army infamous Unit 61398 hacked over a 100 targets in the US, unleashed new types of malware and put the “Persistent” in APT.
For those not familiar with the term, APT stands for Advanced Persistent Threat.
This phrase is usually used to describe a severe cyber-security threat posed by professional and well resourced, often state-sponsored, hacker groups. The kind of groups that subject their targets to prolonged, determined barrage of cyber attacks until they get what they’re after.
A lot has been written about APT1, their origins, operating methods, malware samples and scale of activities.
I do not wish to replicate these records or turn this post into a historical analysis of this group.
If you wish to read a comprehensive report that covers the APT1 story pretty much from A to Z, check out the phenomenal FireEye’s Mandiant report titled:
APT1 – Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units