As further evidence that government surveillance experts are working in the data broker market, SpyCloud researchers point to a leak earlier this year of I-Soon communications and documentscyberespionage contractor of the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of State Security. In a leaked chat conversation, one company employee suggests to another that “I’m just here to sell qb” and “sell some qb yourself.” SpyCloud researchers interpret “qb” to mean “qíngbào” or “intelligence.”
Since the average annual salary in China, even in a state-owned IT company, it only costs about $30,000The promise (however credible or dubious) of earning almost a third of that daily amount in exchange for selling access to surveillance data represents a strong temptation, SpyCloud researchers argue. “These are not necessarily the masterminds,” Johnson says. “These are people with opportunities and reasons to earn a little extra money.”
Hopefully some government officials are cashing in on their access to surveillance data amid the China crisis. perpetual fight against corruptionsays Dakota Cary, a China-focused cybersecurity and policy researcher at cybersecurity firm SentinelOne, who reviewed SpyCloud’s findings. Transparency International, for example, ranks China 76th in the world out of 180 countries in its Corruption Indexwell below all EU countries except Hungary (with which it tied), including Bulgaria and Romania. Corruption “is prevalent in the security services, in the military and in all sectors of government,” says Cary. “It is a top-down cultural attitude in the current political climate. “It is not at all surprising that people with this type of data effectively rent the access they have as part of their job.”
In their investigation, SpyCloud analysts went so far as to attempt to use Telegram-based data brokers to seek personal information about certain high-ranking Chinese Communist Party and People’s Liberation Army officials, individual hackers sponsored by the Chinese state. they have identified in US indictments, and the CEO of cybersecurity company I-Soon, Wu Haibo. The results of those queries included a large number of phone numbers, email addresses, bank card numbers, car registration records and “hashed” passwords – passwords likely obtained through a data breach that are protected with a form of encryption but are sometimes vulnerable to being decrypted. —for those government officials and contractors.
In some cases, data brokers at least claim to restrict searches to exclude celebrities or government officials. But researchers say they were generally able to find a solution. “You can always find another service that is willing to do the search and get some documents,” says SpyCloud researcher Kyla Cardona.
The result, as Cardona describes it, is an even more unexpected consequence of a system that collects such vast, centralized data on every citizen in the country: that surveillance data not only leaks into private hands, but also finds its way into the hands of those . who are observing the observers.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” says Cardona. “This data is collected for them and by them, but it can also be used against them.”