State-sponsored hackers have reportedly targeted Vatican computer networks in an attempt to give China an advantage in negotiations to renew a provisional deal with the Holy See.
A report, released July 28, said that hackers may have used a counterfeit condolence message from Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, to gain access to Vatican communications.
The report was compiled by the Insikt Group, the research arm of the U.S.-based cybersecurity company Recorded Future. Researchers said they had uncovered “a cyberespionage campaign attributed to a suspected Chinese state-sponsored threat activity group,” which they referred to as RedDelta.
Investigators said that RedDelta had targeted the Vatican and the Catholic diocese of Hong Kong from early May.
Other Catholic targets included the Hong Kong Study Mission to China and the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions in Italy. The report noted that these organizations “have not been publicly reported as targets of Chinese threat activity groups prior to this campaign.”
Researchers said that the network intrusions took place ahead of talks to renew a “provisional agreement” between the Holy See and China, which was sealed in 2018 and expires in September.
“The suspected intrusion into the Vatican would offer RedDelta insight into the negotiating position of the Holy See ahead of the deal’s September 2020 renewal. The targeting of the Hong Kong Study Mission and its Catholic diocese could also provide a valuable intelligence source for both monitoring the diocese’s relations with the Vatican and its position on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement amidst widespread protests and the recent sweeping Hong Kong national security law,” the report concluded.
Earlier this month ZDNet reported that the Diocese of Hong Kong was targeted by “spear-phishing” operations from the Chinese government.
The technology publication said that hackers associated with the Chinese authorities repeatedly attacked officials with the diocese of Hong Kong with legitimate-looking documents that actually install malware on the user’s computer.
The Insikt Group noted that ZDNet had highlighted a condolence message, purportedly written by Parolin and dated May 14, which hackers used as a “lure document.”
It said: “The document purported to be an official Vatican letter addressed to the current head of the Hong Kong Study Mission to China. It is currently unclear whether the actors created the document themselves, or whether it is a legitimate document they were able to obtain and weaponize.”
“Given that the letter was directly addressed to this individual, it is likely that he was the target of a spear-phishing attempt. Additionally, as this sample was compiled after signs of an intrusion within the Vatican network, it is also possible that the phishing lure was sent through a compromised Vatican account.”
The above comes from a July 29 story on the Catholic News Agency site.
May Our Lady of China and Sheshan pray for her people.
Somehow I don’t think that’s going to work. What’s she been doing so far? Waiting for more rosaries to be prayed? Pious platitudes and hopeful expressions don’t do anything, they don’t change anything, but they make some types of religiously minded people feel good about themselves for saying or typing them. People who look at the rapidly deteriorating situation in the world and in the US objectively have to wonder whether God has been neglectful. This weekend the Gospel is the multiplication of the loaves. That was something concrete, real, perceptible, and useful. Where’s anything concrete, real, perceptible and useful in our day that’s coming from God or the Church? Amazon makes more people’s lives better than the Church does these days. Is Jeff Bezos something of a savior? Really… where’s the beef?
Kevin T., we belong to the City of God, not to the city of man, as St. Augustine found out after he experienced all the earthly “joys” and found them unfulfilling. We will never be completely happy on this earth, but there is a “peace that passes all understanding” that you just do not seem to grasp yet. As Christ said, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” There is a joy that seems to be beyond your comprehension right now, perhaps you are yet too young to see it. May God open you eyes. Try reading “The Hound of Heaven”, and perhaps you will see what I mean.
Kevin T., we were teenagers once, too, and we all had a lot of questions about the horrors in our day, most of which were worse than now and some which were not. When you are young, you haven’t seen enough to see the mercy of God in everything. You just look at the negative and you get scared. You are obviously healthy enough to type; blessedly this day so am I. When you are one of three family members left (although some people never have that many in their family), when you have lost a child (or been one who could never have a child or who never found someone to have a child with), when you have lost count of the times you have been to the urgent care or ER (there is always someone worse off than you there), when you have turned the other cheek so often all you want to do is leave or die (and many have), when you have been abused and bullied so often that you think it’s you, not them and then realize this is just your share of the Lord’s Cross, and you recognize that you come out of these experiences happier and holier, then come back and and tell us about God and the Church..
Kevin, go be the savior you want to see in the world. Go give the help that you wish God would give.
Yes, as Mother Teresa said, “If you cannot feed the world, just feed one person.”
Mother Teresa’s probably not a good example because she admitted she had no experience of God, no sense of God’s presence in her life for 50 years. For almost her whole life she felt like a fraud because she was revered as holy yet felt nothing spiritual yet she begged God to give her a sense of his reality and his presence in her life. She didn’t reveal her spiritual aridity to anyone but her spiritual director because she felt it would scandalize people in the church and in her community to know that her spiritual life was so void. Yeah, I know all about the night of sense and the night of the spirit, but atheists can use her to say that she felt nothing because there’s nothing to be felt. Maybe Mother Teresa was so in deep that she couldn’t gracefully exit despite her doubts. Humanists are capable of the good works she performed. And lots of people don’t really admire Mother Theresa, they just say they do because they want to seem to themselves and to others to be the kind of person who would admire her, as if her virtue will rub off on them for saying how much they admire her, like virtue signaling to say you admire her. I think if they really admired her they would emulate her instead of just paying lip service.
Kevin, it is called “dark nights of the soul”, when we wonder whether anything we ever did amounted to much. When all we did seems to have come to naught, The doors are slammed in our faces. God gives consolations, but he also allows “dark nights of the soul”.
Can you imagine how Mother Teresa felt when she told politicians and others to save the lives of the unborn, only to have them do just the opposite? She said to do good anyway, even when mocked for doing it, and we will be.
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus make our hearts like unto thine.
Anonymous, John of the Cross never used the expression “dark night of the soul.” All you do with your repetition of cliches and platitudes is just make me think that people who think they have it together in Catholic spirituality really don’t have anything together. They just repeat stock phrases in the Catholic language game and think that’s all there is to it, meanwhile the situation in the church and the world is rapidly deteriorating based on every objective measure and nobody in the church has any idea how to get things back on track. 95% of Catholics under 45 have left the church, and I don’t really blame them. What does the church offer to convince them to stay? Nothing. Furthermore, the nights of sense and of the spirit are terrifying. And God causes them; he doesn’t merely allow them.
Kevin T. I have no idea what you are talking about, and you have no idea what I am talking about. Believe me, though, I do not have it “all together”. I cannot even get my computer to work right at times. (Laughter.) Therefore I will just go on and follow my “platitudes” trying to “do small things with great love” as God sees fit to give them to me.
If I had my ‘druthers”, I would not even have a computer as it is a great source of discontent, including my forever full inbox (a necessary evil I assume).
And Mother Teresa got that from St. Therese, who died in her twenties, after practicing her “little way”, as Mother Teresa put it, “Doing small things with great love.”
I have often asked why God allowed me to grow so much older, when those far holier that I died in their youth. The only answer I have gotten so far is “to learn to save lives, to save lives”.
The Anonymous post yesterday at 6:54pm was mine. One of the trials of a sometimes shared computer.
“they make some types of religiously minded people feel good about themselves for saying or typing them.” How would you know how it makes people feel?
“lots of people don’t really admire Mother Theresa, they just say they do because they want to seem to themselves and to others to be the kind of person who would admire her, as if her virtue will rub off on them for saying how much they admire her, like virtue signaling to say you admire her.” How would you know what they want?
“All you do with your repetition of cliches and platitudes is just make me think that people who think they have it together in Catholic spirituality really don’t have anything together. They just repeat stock phrases in the Catholic language game and think that’s all there is to it,” How would you know what they think?
Why do you do that? Why belittle people, or trivialize their faith, or insult them? They tried to help you and you are returning evil for good.
Does anyone except Pope Francis think it is a good it is a good idea to allow the Communist Chinese government to choose the bishops for Chinese Catholics?
Relevant Radio’s Msgr Stuart Swetland likes it. Relevant Radio hasn’t called him on it.
And the Vatican thinks they can make a deal with these people. Wake up.