12 Chinese hackers charged with US Treasury breach — and much, much more
1 min read
Summary
Twelve Chinese hackers have been charged with targeting over 100 US organisations in a string of attacks going back to 2013, including the recently discovered attack on the US Treasury.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) believes they were acting either on their own, or working for the Chinese Ministry of Public Security (MPS), and China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS).
Two of the accused are said to be MPS officers, whilst eight others were employees of a Chinese company called i-Soon, which was allegedly able to hack email inboxes as well as Twitter and the X platform, which the Chinese government allegedly used to monitor public opinion overseas.
The final two perpetrators are said to be members of the APT27 group, also known as Silk Typhoon, which has reportedly targeted healthcare systems, universities, technology companies, think tanks, law firms, defence contractors and local governments.
The DOJ alleges that the motivations were financial, with the hackers-for-hire selling their wares to the highest bidder.