US Charges 12 Alleged Spies in China’s Freewheeling Hacker-for-Hire Ecosystem
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Summary
Twelve Chinese nationals have been indicted over a decade-long hacker intrusion campaign which targeted the US Treasury among other government departments, media outlets that have criticised the Beijing government, and dissidents.
Eight of those charged worked for contractor i-Soon, two were officials at the Ministry of Public Security, while two others were said to be part of APT27, a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group also known as Silk Typhoon.
The latter is alleged to have breached the US Treasury in September-December last year, penetrating at least 400 computers and stealing more than 3,000 files.
A senior DOJ official said that i-Soon’s operations showed that “China is fostering reckless and indiscriminate targeting of vulnerable computers worldwide, even if it doesn’t task or obtain the fruits of those hacks”, making everyone more vulnerable.
