Hackers Attempt to Cyber-Attack Airbus Aerospace Group

A series of cyber-attacks by hackers is hitting Aerospace manufacturing giant Airbus. They have been targeting its suppliers for the reason of search for commercial secrets.

Moreover, investigators are suspecting a fishy China link.

In the last 12 months, there have been four significant strikes on Airbus. The information came from two security sources engaged in probing the hacking.

The company had been a tempting target. It is because of the cutting-edge technologies that have made it one of the world’s biggest commercial plane manufacturers.

In addition, it is also a strategic military provider.

People with knowledge of the attacks summarized a collaborative and far more extensive campaign over the last years.

Meanwhile, in January, the company then admitted to a security incident that “it resulted in unauthorized access to data.”

Hackers aim for British engine-maker Rolls-Royce and the French technology consultancy with supplier Expleo.

They also wanted to attack two other French contractors working for Airbus that AFP was not capable of identifying.

Airbus and Rolls-Royce did not instantly answer back to AFP’s request for comment.

Boost Aerospace security specialist, Romain Bottan, stated the attacks demonstrated that hackers kept searching for weak links in the series to compromise Airbus’s systems.

He also added, “Huge companies are very well protected, it’s hard to pirate them, so smaller companies are a better target.”

VPN Access Point

At the end of last year, they uncovered the attack versus Expleo. However, the group’s system was conceding long before.

One of the informants told AFP regarding on the condition of anonymity.

The source added, “It was very sophisticated and targeted the VPN which connected the company to Airbus.”

A VPN or virtual private network is an encoded network that allows employees to gain access to the company systems remotely.

At times, suppliers of Airbus operate in a VPN linking them with associates at the plane-maker.

The other attacks make use of the same methods. The first of them was noticed at a British subsidiary of Expleo. It is also known as Assystem.

Rolls-Royce also offers an engine for Airbus planes.

According to several sources, the hackers seem to be interested in technical documents. These are all linked to the certification method for the different parts of the Airbus aircraft.

They also indicated several stolen documents attached to the engines of the Airbus military transport plane A400M.

The plane consists some of the highly powerful propeller engines in the world.

Meanwhile, one of the sources said the hackers were also concerned in the forward motion systems for the Airbus A350 passenger jet.

Moreover, it’s avionics systems which is controlling the plane.

Whose Responsibility Is It? 

None of the informants who talked to AFP could formally identify the culprits of the attack.

They are all indicating to the extreme difficulty in obtaining evidence. In addition, the proof of identity in any cyber-attack.

Many state-backing and autonomous hackers uses tools to hide their identity. They may also give clues meant to confuse detectives or lead them to accuse someone else.

The sources stated they alleged Chinese hackers were responsible. This was after the given past track history of robbing sensitive commercial information and the existence of a motive.