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The African Union\u2019s shiny new headquarters was built and paid for by the Chinese government, as a gift to its \u201cAfrican friends\u201d. (Reuters)<\/p>\nThe African Union\u2019s shiny new headquarters was built and paid for by the Chinese government, as a gift to its \u201cAfrican friends\u201d. (Reuters)<\/p>\n
Jan 31, 2018: China built and paid for the African Union\u2019s computer network \u2013 but inserted a backdoor allowing it access to the continental organisation\u2019s confidential information<\/p>\n
In January 2017, the information technology unit at the African Union\u2019s headquarters in Addis Ababa noticed something strange, according to a stunning investigation in French newspaper Le Monde.<\/p>\n
Every night, between midnight and 2am, there was a strange peak in data usage \u2013 even though the building was almost entirely empty. Upon further investigation, the technicians noticed something even stranger. That data \u2013 which included confidential information \u2013 was being sent to servers based in Shanghai.<\/p>\n
The African Union\u2019s shiny new headquarters was built and paid for by the Chinese government, as a gift to its \u201cAfrican friends\u201d. But when the building was officially opened in 2012, China left a backdoor into the African Union\u2019s computer network, allowing it to access the institution\u2019s secrets at will.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to several sources within the institution, all sensitive content could be spied on by China,\u201d wrote Le Monde. \u201cIt\u2019s a spectacular leak of data, spread from January 2012 to January 2017.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Chinese mission to the AU did not respond to Le Monde\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n
Once the problem was discovered, African Union officials acted quickly to fix it. The organisation acquired its own servers, and began encrypting its communications. In July 2017, a team of experts from Algeria \u2013 a country with a notoriously efficient intelligence community \u2013 along with cybersecurity experts from Ethiopia combed the building from top to bottom, looking for hidden microphones and other potential weaknesses.<\/p>\n
China would not be the first supposedly friendly superpower to spy on the African Union. A separate investigation in December 2016, conducted by Le Monde and The Intercept, revealed that African Union officials were targeted for surveillance by British intelligence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The African Union\u2019s shiny new headquarters was built and paid for by the Chinese government, as a gift to its \u201cAfrican friends\u201d. (Reuters) Jan 31, 2018: China built and paid for the African Union\u2019s computer network \u2013 but inserted a backdoor allowing it access to the continental organisation\u2019s confidential information In January 2017, the information […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,49],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n