Reuters published on 16 December 2020 an article titled "Exclusive-Suspected Chinese Hackers Stole Camera Footage from African Union-Memo" by Raphael Satter.
According to an internal African Union memo, a Chinese hacking group nicknamed "Bronze President" rigged servers in the basement of an administrative annex to the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa to siphon videos from surveillance cameras covering the AU's offices, parking areas, corridors, and meeting rooms. Japan's Computer Emergency Response Team alerted AU officials to the security breach. The Chinese mission to the AU denied the charge.
This incident recalls a credible report in 2018 that China, which built the AU headquarters free of charge and installed the communications system, had been downloading and sending to China for years sensitive communications leaving and entering the AU until a report in Le Monde brought it to an end. Both China and the AU denied the report.
According to the Reuters' report, a former AU official stated that any official protest over the spying is unlikely because of China's significant financial contributions to the AU.
