Wuhan Earthquake center attacked by foreign hackers

The Wuhan Earthquake Monitoring Center in Hubei province has suffered from a cyberattack  conducted by foreign organizations, the Wuhan Municipal Emergency Management Bureau said on Wednesday.

The National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center and the 360 Security Technology recently announced that the network at the front-end station of the Wuhan Earthquake Monitoring Center, which is affiliated to the bureau, was attacked by foreign organizations, the bureau said in a statement. 

The bureau and the center are firmly against any form of cyberattack, whether conducted by an organization or an individual, and any behavior that harms earthquake monitoring infrastructure will be investigated and held accountable under the law. 

The center closed off the network equipment in time, and reported the situation to police, the statement said, adding that the bureau reserves the right to pursue the case.

A post on the official account of the Wuhan Municipal Public Security Bureau stated that such attacks pose a serious threat to national security, and the Jianghan branch of the Wuhan Municipal Public Security Bureau has filed an investigation.

Technical analysis shows that a backdoor program was inserted in some of the station's network equipment, which was capable of controlling and stealing seismic activity data. According to the preliminary investigation, this attack was launched by overseas hacker organizations with governmental backgrounds, according to Wuhan police.