Report: China’s New Comac C919 Jetliner Is Built With Stolen Technology

by Joel Hruska

The C919 is a relatively new narrow-body jet built by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, or COMAC for short. It’s also apparently the beneficiary (and to some degree, the result) of massive hacking operations undertaken by the Chinese government and a government-affiliated hacking group, dubbed Turbine Panda.

A major report by the infosec security company Crowdstrike lays out the details, and it doesn’t mince words. The opening paragraph of the report states:

Short of kicking down the door just as a cyber actor pushes enter, it is frustratingly hard to prove who is responsible for cyber attacks with 100% certainty. However, a series of recent U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) indictments released over the course of two years, combined with CrowdStrike Intelligence’s own research, has allowed for startling visibility into a facet of China’s shadowy intelligence apparatus.

The document describes a sustained effort by China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) to create a network of cyber actors, MSS employees, and company insiders to steal key pieces of technology from the companies China hired to collaborate on the design of the C919. These operations, CrowdStrike says, can ultimately be traced to the MSS Jiansu Bureau. That’s…