New Zealand and Australia condemn cyber targeting by Chinese state sponsored actors

WELLINGTON (Reuters) -The New Zealand and Australian governments on Tuesday joined Britain and other international partners in expressing concerns about malicious cyber activity by Chinese state-backed actors, with New Zealand adding that its parliamentarian entities in 2021 were a victim.

"The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable," said Judith Collins, who is responsible for the New Zealand agency which overseas cyber security and signals intelligence known as the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).

U.S. and British officials on Monday filing charges, imposing sanctions, and accusing Beijing of a sweeping cyber espionage campaign that allegedly hit millions of people including lawmakers, academics and journalists, and companies including defense contractors.

American and British officials nicknamed the hacking group Advanced Persistent Threat 31 or "APT31", calling it an arm of China's Ministry of State Security. Officials reeled off a laundry list of targets: White House staffers, U.S. senators, British parliamentarians, and government officials across the world who criticized Beijing. Defense contractors, dissidents and security companies were also hit, officials from the two countries said.

Collins said the New Zealand GCSB had established links between a state-sponsored actor linked to China and malicious cyber activity targeting Parliamentary entities in New Zealand with the activity attributed to a Chinese state-sponsored group known as APT40.

"Fortunately, in this instance, the National Cyber Security Centre (operated by the GCSB) worked with the impacted organisations to contain the activity and remove the actor shortly after they were able to access the network," Collins said.

The networks the group gained access to contain important information that enables the effective operation of New Zealand government.

A joint statement from Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil said persistent targeting of democratic institutions and processes has implications for democratic and open societies like Australia. It said this behaviour is unacceptable and must stop.

It added, however, that Australia's electoral systems were not compromised and Australia remains well positioned to continue to resist and address threats to our electoral roll.

(Reporting by Lucy Craymer; Editing by David Gregorio)

By Lucy Craymer