A defence contractor that works on Israel’s Iron Dome missile shield system has come out to deny it was a victim of Chinese hack attack two years ago that allegedly stole classified information about the technology.

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) issued a statement to a number of media outlets, saying that the reports were incorrect.

“The information reported regarding the leakage of sensitive information is incorrect,” said spokewoman Eliana Fishler. “The publications refer to an attempt to penetrate the company’s civilian non-classified internet network which allegedly occurred several years ago. IAI’s cyber security systems operate in accordance with the most rigorous requirements and also in this case they were proven to be effective.”

Security expert Brian Krebs, who first broke the story, previously quoted Fishler as saying that the incident was reported to “appropriate authorities”, and that IAI had since undertaken “corrective actions in order to prevent such incidents in the future”.

What’s not clear is how this earlier statement meshes with Fishler’s denial earlier today. Krebs reported that the hack was apparently discovered by Cyber Engineering Services Inc., which found evidence pointing to the involvement of none other than the Comment Crew, the infamous cyber attackers previously fingered for stealing data from dozens of US government contractors and agencies. Krebs added that the group made off with a stash of sensitive data from IAI, as well as its subsidiary Elisra, and another contractor called Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.

Cyber Engineering Services claimed that some 700 files were stolen from IAI, which included dozens of spreadsheets and word documents, emails, PDFs and executable binaries. It also said that Comment Crew had been ‘inside’ AIA’s systems for up to four months before it was detected. During that time, Administrator credentials and Active Directory data was dumped, while various keyloggers and Trojans were planted in its systems.

photo credit: caledomac via photopin cc