Meet the 3 Chinese Hackers Pwned by Mandiant

Retired PLA rear admiral Zhang Zhaozong, who inspired UglyGorilla.<a href="http://www.chinamil.com.cn/">People's Liberation Army</a>/Mandiant

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


In case you missed it, the cybersecurity firm Mandiant just released a bombshell report (pdf) on how nearly 150 sophisticated hacking attempts against American corporations and government agencies over the past decade almost certainly originated from a single Shanghai office building controlled by People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The hacking group, dubbed APT1 in the report, launches its attacks from roughly the same address in the city’s Pudong New Area as the one used by the PLA’s Unit 61398, a probable cyberwar division. But the excellent New York Times exclusive on Mandiant’s findings omits some colorful details about the hackers themselves. One of them, for instance, is apparently a Harry Potter fan. Here are profiles of the three Chinese hackers Mandiant outed in its report.

Jack Wang, a.k.a. Wang Dong, a.k.a. UglyGorilla

A profile photo used by UglyGorilla

Back in 2004, the cyberwarfare expert Zhang Zhaozhong was participating in an online Q&A hosted by the website China Military Online. A retired PLA rear admiral, professor at China’s National Defense University, and strong advocate of the “informationization” of military units, Zhang had written several works on military tech strategy, including “Network Warfare” and “Winning the Information War.” One question for Zhang came from a site user with the handle “Greenfield,” who brought up the United States’ cyberwar capabilities. “Does China have a similar force?” he asked. “Does China have cyber troops?”

Greenfield would soon become one of those troops, according to Mandiant. When he registered for the China Military site, he gave his real name as “Jack Wang” and the email address uglygorilla@163.com—details that would later be associated with the hacker known as UglyGorilla. That October, UglyGorilla registered the hacker zone HugeSoft.org, a name that, as Bloomberg has reported, “combines two common descriptors of a gorilla, along with sub-domains like ‘tree’ and ‘man.'”

In 2007, UglyGorilla authored the first known sample of a widely used family of Chinese malware and brazenly left his signature in the code: “v1.0 No Doubt to Hack You, Writed by UglyGorilla, 06/29/2007.”

DOTA, a.k.a. Rodney, a.k.a. Raith

DOTA may have taken his or her name from the video game “Defense of the Ancients,” commonly abbreviated DotA. The name shows up in dozens of email accounts that DOTA created for social engineering and phishing attacks, according to Mandiant. It appears Mandiant was able to hack some of these accounts, allowing them to get DOTA’s phone number (a mobile phone in Shanghai) and the username of DOTA’s (blank) US-based Facebook account, where DOTA registered as female. Mandiant published a screen-grab of one of DOTA’s Gmail accounts:

DOTA appears to speak fluent English and may be a fan of American and British pop culture. The answers to security questions associated with his or her internet accounts—such as, “Who is your favorite teacher?” or “Who is your best childhood friend?”—are often some variation of “Harry” and “Poter.”

Mandiant linked some of DOTA’s other passwords to a pattern that seems to be associated with Unit 61398, the PLA’s cyberwar division.

Mei Qiang, a.k.a. SuperHard

Similar to UglyGorilla, Mei Qiang signs much of his work by embedding his name into the code. His malware is often signed “SuperHard” and his Microsoft hacking tools are altered from “Microsoft corp.” to “superhard corp.”

SuperHard primarily works on tools used by other Chinese hackers; he’s probably employed in APT1’s research and development arm, according to Mandiant. He has also volunteered to write Trojan software for money. Mandiant researchers gained access to some of the hacker’s internet accounts. They believe he (or she; it’s hard to know) used the email address mei_quiang_82@sohu.com, which, based on Chinese habit, suggests that the user is named Mei Quiang and born in 1982. They also traced SuperHard to Shanghai’s Pudong New Area—information that should give US security experts plenty of leads, assuming the hacker hasn’t been fired yet.

 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate