U.S. Justice Department Announces Arrest of Prolific Chinese State-Sponsored Contract Hacker


China’s Ministry of State Security Directed the Theft of COVID-19 Research and the Exploitation of Microsoft Exchange Server Vulnerabilities, Known Publicly as the Indiscriminate ‘HAFNIUM’ Intrusion Campaign The Justice Department announced today that Xu Zewei (徐泽伟), 33, of the People’s Republic of China was arrested on July 3 in Italy at the request of the United States.

Xu and his co-defendant, PRC national Zhang Yu (张宇), 44, are charged in a nine-count indictment, unsealed today in the Southern District of Texas, for their involvement in computer intrusions between February 2020 and June 2021, including the indiscriminate HAFNIUM computer intrusion campaign that compromised thousands of computers worldwide, including in the United States. Xu was arrested in Milan, Italy, and will face extradition proceedings.

Read more…
Source: U.S. Department of Justice


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber secnews and insights delivered right to your inbox.


Related:

  • Air Force knocking down stovepipes to shore up space cybersecurity

    May 3, 2017

    Cybersecurity is a growing concern for everyone who relies computers. The U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) faces unique challenges, however, because it uses an extensive array of ground systems that in some cases are decades old to communicate with the individual satellites and constellations the U.S. military relies on during peacetime ...

  • Pentagon Challenges White Hats with New “Hack the Air Force” Bug Bounty Program

    April 27, 2017

    The Pentagon is launching its largest bug bounty project thus far, this time asking hackers to find flaws in the Air Force’s platforms. “Hack the Air Force” will be open not only to experts in the United States but also from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, or, in other words, what we’ve come ...

  • DOE releases results of energy cybersecurity emergency exercise

    April 25, 2017

    The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently released the findings and recommendations from Liberty Eclipse, a multi-state cyber-energy preparedness exercise hosted by DOE and the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) in December 2016. The exercise simulated a cyber attack on the energy infrastructure, including electricity, gasoline, jet fuel, heating oil, and other energy services, ...

  • NSA’s DoublePulsar Kernel Exploit In Use Internet-Wide

    April 24, 2017

    If you’re on a red team or have been on the receiving end of a pen-test report from one, then you’ve almost certainly encountered reports of Windows servers vulnerable to Conficker (MS08-067), which has been in the wild now for nearly 10 years since the bug was patched. A little more than two weeks after the ...

  • US Court Sentences Russian Lawmaker’s Son to 27 Years in Jail for Hacking

    April 21, 2017

    The son of a prominent Russian lawmaker was sentenced on Friday by a US federal court to 27 years in prison after being convicted of stealing millions of US credit card numbers and causing some $170 million in damages to businesses and individuals. This sentence is so far the longest sentence ever imposed in the United ...

  • CIA director calls WikiLeaks ‘hostile intelligence agency’

    April 13, 2017

    CIA Director Mike Pompeo is denouncing WikiLeaks, calling the anti-secrecy group a “hostile intelligence agency.” In his first public speech since becoming director of the agency, the former Republican congressman says WikiLeaks “walks like a hostile intelligence agency and talks like a hostile intelligence agency.” Last month, WikiLeaks released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveals secrets ...