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Jun 17, 2024 • 5 min read

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China’s Real Estate Market
Truist Cyberattack

China’s Real Estate Market:

In the first five months of 2024, property investment in China experienced a substantial decline of 10.1% compared to the same period last year, worsening from a 9.8% drop recorded in the January-April period. Despite intensified efforts by policymakers to support the struggling sector and boost consumer confidence, the downturn continues. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that property sales by floor area fell by 20.3% year-on-year, a slight increase from the 20.2% decline seen in January-April.
New construction starts, measured by floor area, saw a significant year-on-year drop of 24.2%, following a 24.6% decrease in the first four months of the year. Additionally, funds raised by China's property developers were down 24.3% from the previous year, after a 24.9% decrease in January-April. These statistics highlight the deepening challenges faced by the Chinese property market. In response to the ongoing crisis, the Chinese government announced measures last month aimed at stabilizing the property sector.
These initiatives focus on reducing the massive inventory of unsold homes and boosting housing demand. China's rapid economic growth over the past few decades has been remarkable, transitioning from a largely agrarian economy to the world's second-largest economy, driven by industrialization, urbanization, and significant investments in infrastructure and real estate. However, this explosive growth has created challenges, leading to a situation where the economy has, in a sense, grown too big too fast.
To fuel growth, China invested heavily in industries and infrastructure, leading to overcapacity and a high debt-to-GDP ratio, posing risks to financial stability and limiting the government's ability to stimulate the economy further. Massive investments in property development have led to a significant oversupply of housing, creating a property bubble and financial strain on developers. Rapid growth has also led to significant income inequality, environmental degradation, and global trade tensions, compelling China to rethink its economic strategies and strengthen its domestic market.

Truist Cyberattack:

Truist Bank recently confirmed that its systems were breached in a cyberattack that occurred in October 2023. The breach was revealed after a threat actor posted some of the bank's data for sale on a hacking forum. Formed from the merger of SunTrust Banks and BB&T in December 2019, Truist Bank is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and ranks among the top 10 U.S. commercial banks with total assets of $535 billion. The bank provides a wide array of services, including consumer and small business banking, commercial banking, corporate and investment banking, insurance, wealth management, and payment solutions.
The threat actor, identified as Sp1d3r, claims to have stolen data involving 65,000 employees and is selling it for $1 million. This information was initially identified by DarkTower intelligence analyst James Hub. The data reportedly includes bank transactions with names, account numbers, balances, and the source code for Truist Bank's Interactive Voice Response (IVR) automated phone system used for transferring funds. In addition to the Truist breach, Sp1d3r is also selling data allegedly stolen from cybersecurity firm Cylance for $750,000.
This includes databases containing 34,000,000 customer and employee emails and personally identifiable information. Cylance confirmed that the data, taken from a third-party platform, is from 2015-2018. Previously, Sp1d3r had also offered for sale 3TB of data belonging to automotive parts provider Advance Auto Parts, stolen from their Snowflake account. Truist Bank continues to collaborate with law enforcement and external cybersecurity experts to secure its systems and data, and so far, there is no indication of fraud resulting from the October 2023 incident.

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