The virus, “ACAD/Medre.A”, has stolen tens of thousands of blueprints from companies mostly based in Peru, said ESET, a computer security firm.
It targeted software called AutoCAD, which is very widely used by industrial designers and architects. The stolen drawings were surreptitiously sent to email accounts provided by two Chinese internet firms, 163.com and qq.com, although this is no guarantee the criminals behind the raid were Chinese.
It is believed ACAD/Medre.A was distributed to Peruvian companies via a booby-trapped AutoCAD template that was initially sent to public bodies. The virus was first detected some months ago but ESET saw a sudden spike in infections two months ago as its authors began to exploit their creation.
“[It] represents a serious case of industrial espionage,” said ESET researcher Righard Zwienenberg.
“Every new design is sent automatically to the operator of this malware. Needless to say this can cost the legitimate owner of the intellectual property a lot of money as the cybercriminals have access to the designs even before they go into production.”
“They may even have the guts to apply for patents on the product before the inventor has registered it at the patent office.”
Unusually, Chinese authorities have cooperated with efforts to investigate and disable the virus.
“We were really surprised they helped us because it’s the first time we have worked with Chinese authorities,” said Mr Zwienenberg.
Government experts helped follow the path taken by the stolen drawings to their final destination in Chinese email accounts, which have been blocked.
China is seen a major source of industrial espionage online, a reputation that has prompted warnings to major British firms from MI5.
