{"id":258519,"date":"2026-05-29T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/29\/chinese-hackers-exploit-iran-war-to-target-maritime-and-energy-firms\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T06:10:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T10:10:24","slug":"chinese-hackers-exploit-iran-war-to-target-maritime-and-energy-firms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/29\/chinese-hackers-exploit-iran-war-to-target-maritime-and-energy-firms\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Hackers Exploit Iran War to Target Maritime and Energy Firms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chinese Hackers Exploit Iran War to Target Maritime and Energy Firms<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.infosecurity-magazine.com\/news\/chinese-hackers-exploit-iran-war\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-29 05:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.infosecurity-magazine.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Hacking groups linked to China have exploited the war in the Middle East in attempts to compromise maritime and energy companies in the region, cybersecurity researchers at ESET have warned.<\/p>\n

Published on May 28, the latest ESET APT Activity Report warned that nation-state backed APT groups are actively targeting geopolitical hotpots, especially the Gulf region, following US military operations against Iran.<\/p>\n

Chinese espionage and hacking operations also continue to target organizations around the world, in line with Beijing\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n

This included targeting of government organizations in Central America and an attempted espionage campaign against an AI and robotics company in South Korea.<\/p>\n

ESET noted that the latter aligns with the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s (CCP) interest in strategic technologies prioritized under its \u2018Made in China 2025\u2019 industrial development policy.<\/p>\n

Hacks in Line With China’s Economic Interests\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

China has actively attempted to exploit instability in the Middle East, and ESET said that it has seen evidence of that China-aligned groups were being mobilized to improve Beijing\u2019s visibility into maritime, energy and political developments in the region.<\/p>\n

The report noted that China\u2019s interest in the Middle East wasn\u2019t limited to the Gulf, but that cyber operations have also actively targeted Syria. SteppeDriver, a China-linked APT group has targeted Syrian government networks.<\/p>\n

ESET researchers suggest that this activity is linked to Chinese commercial interest in Syria\u2019s reconstruction projects, as well as Beijing\u2019s security concerns surrounding Uyghur fighters present in Syria.<\/p>\n

The report also noted that during the coverage period of October 2025 to March 2026, Chinese espionage and hacking groups also took a significant interest in central and south America.<\/p>\n

This included an operation by China-aligned APT FamousSparrow, which targeted a Venezuelan governmental entity connected to maritime affairs. Researchers noted…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chinese Hackers Exploit Iran War to Target Maritime and Energy Firms https:\/\/www.infosecurity-magazine.com\/news\/chinese-hackers-exploit-iran-war\/ Publish Date: 2026-05-29…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":258520,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/assets.infosecurity-magazine.com\/webpage\/og\/7a57bffc-2707-463c-bcc4-a4c81be51f66.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[26,24,31],"class_list":["post-258519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-ai","tag-cybersecurity","tag-exploit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258519"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258521,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258519\/revisions\/258521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}