Citizen Lab say exiled Uyghur leaders targeted with Windows spyware

Unknown hackers were targeting the Uyghur -exiled leaders in the campaign involving Windows Spyware last month, researchers revealed on Monday.

Citizen Lab, Research group Digital Rights based at the University of Toronto, detailed Campaign for spying against members of the Uyghur World Congress (WUC), an organization that represents a group of Muslim minority, which has for years faced repression, discrimination, supervisionand hacking from the Chinese government.

In mid-March, Google warned some WUC members of the hacking campaign, which encouraged members to contact journalists and researchers Citizen LAB, the report said.

Civic laboratory explored and found targeted Phishing E-mail sent to WUC members, falsely presenting a reliable contact that sent a Google Drive connection for a compressed password protected file containing a malicious version of the Uyghur text editor.

Researchers said the campaign was not particularly sophisticated and not included utilization of zero day or Spy software mercenaryBut he noted that “the delivery of malicious software has shown a high level of social engineering, revealing a deep understanding of the target community of attackers.”