China-Linked Cyber Campaign Infiltrated Dozens of Western Governments: Dutch Intelligence

The Netherlands’ National Cyber Security Center said the Chinese cyber campaign is far larger than previously thought.

"Prince," a member of the hacking group Red Hacker Alliance who declined to give his real name, uses a website that monitors global cyberattacks on his computer at their office in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, China, on Aug. 4, 2020. Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images

A China-linked cyber campaign that infiltrated a Dutch defense network last year is much larger than previously thought and has infiltrated tens of thousands of government and defense systems in Western nations, according to the Dutch government.

The campaign, dubbed COATHANGER, has been linked to communist China; it exploited a zero-day vulnerability in the FortiGate firewall system used by the Netherlands and other nations on many government networks. Zero-day vulnerabilities exist when a software update is first deployed.