Top security companiesare  downplayng  McAfee’s claim of a five-year hacking operation which was dubbed as Operation Shady Rat.

Last Tuesday, McAfee reported a grand scale cyber attack which has infiltrated 72 organizations in 14 countries. The hacking operation has been stealing documents and spying government agencies, organizations and businesses for the last five years. The scale of the attack is “most significant and potentially damaging acts of cyber-espionage yet made public.”

McAfee hinted that the snooping campaign was orchestrated by a “state actor”. The company did not name China but, some analysts blamed China for the hacking operation.

To clear out speculations, China’s official Communist Party newspaper found the McAfee repost rubbish. The People’s Daily said that “arbitrarily linking China and every hacking attack is irresponsible.”

“The McAfee report claims that a ‘state actor’ engaged in hacking for a large-scale Internet espionage operation, but its analysis clearly does not stand up to scrutiny.”

“In fact, as hacking attacks against internationally renowned companies or international organizations have increased this year, some Western media have repeatedly described China as ‘the black hand behind the scenes’.”

There was no official statement yet from Beijing but, The People’s Daily is considered as the ruling party mouthpiece.

Rival companies also found McAfee’s report lack substantial evidence.

Kaspersky’s chief security expert, Alex Gostev, expressed that it’s too premature to hail Operation Shady Rat as the biggest cyberattack in history until McAfee provides enough evidence.

“The report contains nothing on what particular data has been stolen or how many computers in each organization were hit by the attacks.”

“The document contains no information about who is responsible for the attack. Talk in the media about China probably being behind the attacks is all based on the opinion of a third-party expert who was briefed by McAfee.”

Another rival company, Symantec, disagrees on McAfee’s claims that the Operation Shady Rat attacks are advanced and sophisticated.

“While this attack is indeed significant, it is one of many similar attacks taking place daily,” says Symantec researcher Hon Lau in the Symantec blog. “Even as we speak, there are other malware groups targeting many other organizations in a similar manner in order to gain entry and pilfer secrets.”

“Is the attack described in Operation Shady RAT a truly advanced persistent threat? I would contend that it isn’t, especially when you consider the errors made in configuring the servers and the relatively non-sophisticated malware and techniques used in this case.”

Services Angle

The Operation Shady Rat is definitely a big buzz in the tech world this week, which has been cited as the biggest cyberattack in history. However, security experts expressed that there is yet enough information to clearly asses the truth behind such a major espionage.

This year has been plagued with highly publicized hacking attacks which have infiltrated government agencies and organizations. With the information nowadays becoming more centralized, it is an opportunity for cloud service providers to offer alternative and potentially more effective protection from these kinds of attacks.