The Division of Justice has introduced prison prices towards 12 Chinese language government-linked hackers who’re accused of hacking greater than 100 American organizations, together with the U.S. Treasury, over the course of a decade.
The charged people all performed a “key position” in China’s hacker-for-hire ecosystem, a senior DOJ official stated on a background name with reporters, together with information.killnetswitch, on Wednesday. The official added that these charged, which incorporates contract hackers and Chinese language legislation enforcement officers, focused organizations within the U.S. and worldwide for the needs of “suppressing free speech and non secular freedoms.”
The DOJ additionally confirmed that two of the indicted people are linked to the China government-backed hacking group APT27, or Silk Hurricane.
The 2 people, named as Yin Kecheng and Zhou Shuai, are accused of finishing up “multi-year, for-profit pc intrusion campaigns” relationship again to 2013. Prosecutors say these campaigns allowed the 2 people to steal knowledge from sufferer organizations earlier than promoting that info to 3rd events, a few of which had hyperlinks to the Chinese language authorities.
The 2 hackers gained entry to victims’ networks by exploiting a number of security flaws in extensively used enterprise software program, in line with the DOJ’s now-unsealed indictment. New analysis from Microsoft printed on Wednesday confirms the hackers exploited flaws in Microsoft Alternate, Palo Alto Networks firewalls, Citrix NetScaler home equipment, and Ivanti Pulse Join Safe home equipment as just lately as January.
Ivanti’s chief security officer Daniel Spicer informed information.killnetswitch that the corporate “can’t communicate” to Microsoft’s attribution, however stated it moved rapidly to patch the bug.
Organizations focused by Yin and Zhou embrace U.S.-based know-how corporations, suppose tanks, legislation corporations, protection contractors, native governments, healthcare techniques, and universities, stated U.S. prosecutors.
Yin has additionally been linked to the latest widespread hack of the U.S. Treasury in December 2024. Yin was sanctioned by the Treasury Division’s Workplace of International Property Management in February after linking Yin to China’s Ministry of State Safety (MSS), the intelligence company liable for the nation’s international intelligence assortment.
In accordance with the DOJ, the FBI has seized the digital non-public servers and different infrastructure utilized by Yin to hold out the hack on the U.S. Treasury.
The Justice Division additionally on Wednesday introduced prices towards eight staff of Chinese language authorities hacking contractor I-Quickly, together with its chief govt and chief working officer, together with two alleged officers of China’s Ministry of Public Safety, the federal government company that oversees public policing within the nation.
In accordance with the DOJ, the I-Quickly staff had been concerned in a widespread hacking marketing campaign from 2016 to 2023, producing “tens of tens of millions of {dollars}.” The I-Quickly staff are additionally accused of finishing up hacks on the request of China’s security companies, in addition to finishing up intrusions on their “personal initiative” earlier than promoting the stolen knowledge to the Chinese language authorities.
This hacking marketing campaign noticed the I-Quickly staff goal quite a lot of U.S.-based organizations, prosecutors say, together with a non secular group that was crucial of the Chinese language authorities, a corporation targeted on selling spiritual freedoms in China, and a number of other U.S. information organizations, the DOJ stated.
Data stolen by Yin was additionally bought via I-Quickly, prosecutors say, although it’s unclear if this consists of knowledge stolen through the breach on the U.S. Treasury.
The defendants stay at giant. The U.S. Division of State’s Rewards for Justice program has introduced a reward of as much as $10 million for info that helps observe down any staff of I-Quickly. Individually, a reward of $2 million is being supplied for info that results in the arrest and conviction of Yin and Zhao.
