Chinese Hackers Broke Into NASA, Federal Reserve, DOJ & Senate: FBI Announces
The United States Department of Justice has on Wednesday announced US authorities thwarted a major state-sponsored hack which saw a temporary intrusion into NASA, the Federal Reserve, Senate, the DOJ, Department of Energy, and the Department of Health and Human services, along with four unnamed companies in the US and South Korea.
"Today we announced the disruption of a global botnet and hacking platform used by Chinese state-sponsored hackers to target U.S. critical infrastructure," said FBI Director Kash Patel.
"These tools were used by PRC cyber actors to hide the origin of their attacks. Thanks to the work of FBI San Diego, FBI Cyber Division, and DOJ partners, we seized adversary infrastructure and shut these platforms down," he added.
via Reuters
Domains utilized by two hacking platforms identified as "QScan" and "QTRouter" were seized by the DOJ in the large scale counter-cyberespionage operation.
Describing a pervasive botnet which was ultimately believed to be backed by Chinese state actors, The Wall Street Journal details that the "goal was to blend in with legitimate networking traffic, making the hacking activity hard to trace, federal officials say."
"The group exploited software vulnerabilities to launch cyberattacks against U.S. government agencies, power companies and hospital systems, and operated a worldwide network of hacked devices—known as a botnet—to conduct its hacking campaigns, according to Brett Leatherman, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s top cyber official," WSJ continues.
As for the specific allegation that this had state backing, the DOJ press release states:
The DOJ announcement additionally outlines efforts at concealment and 'plausible deniability' in the following:
Neither Beijing's foreign ministry nor the Chinese embassy in Washington have officially responded to the allegations, and as has been the pattern in the past is likely to reject the US charge altogether.
Earlier this year Google was among those warning of imminent stepped-up Chinese and Russian targeting of US defense companies.
Google's prior report seemed to preview some of the techniques on display in this latest hack. The report cited observations of "more China-nexus cyber espionage missions directly targeting defense and aerospace industry than from any other state-sponsored actors over the last two years."
US imposes new sanctions on China by September 30?
Yes 21% · No 80%
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"But the hallmark of many operations has been their exploitation of edge devices to gain initial access," it said, referring to hardware components positioned at the edge of a network. "We have also observed China-nexus threat groups leverage ORB networks for reconnaissance against defense industrial targets, which complicates detection and attribution."
Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 17:20
Continue reading...
[ H/T ZeroHedge ]
The United States Department of Justice has on Wednesday announced US authorities thwarted a major state-sponsored hack which saw a temporary intrusion into NASA, the Federal Reserve, Senate, the DOJ, Department of Energy, and the Department of Health and Human services, along with four unnamed companies in the US and South Korea.
"Today we announced the disruption of a global botnet and hacking platform used by Chinese state-sponsored hackers to target U.S. critical infrastructure," said FBI Director Kash Patel.
"These tools were used by PRC cyber actors to hide the origin of their attacks. Thanks to the work of FBI San Diego, FBI Cyber Division, and DOJ partners, we seized adversary infrastructure and shut these platforms down," he added.
via Reuters
Domains utilized by two hacking platforms identified as "QScan" and "QTRouter" were seized by the DOJ in the large scale counter-cyberespionage operation.
Describing a pervasive botnet which was ultimately believed to be backed by Chinese state actors, The Wall Street Journal details that the "goal was to blend in with legitimate networking traffic, making the hacking activity hard to trace, federal officials say."
"The group exploited software vulnerabilities to launch cyberattacks against U.S. government agencies, power companies and hospital systems, and operated a worldwide network of hacked devices—known as a botnet—to conduct its hacking campaigns, according to Brett Leatherman, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s top cyber official," WSJ continues.
As for the specific allegation that this had state backing, the DOJ press release states:
The DOJ announcement additionally outlines efforts at concealment and 'plausible deniability' in the following:
Neither Beijing's foreign ministry nor the Chinese embassy in Washington have officially responded to the allegations, and as has been the pattern in the past is likely to reject the US charge altogether.
Earlier this year Google was among those warning of imminent stepped-up Chinese and Russian targeting of US defense companies.
Google's prior report seemed to preview some of the techniques on display in this latest hack. The report cited observations of "more China-nexus cyber espionage missions directly targeting defense and aerospace industry than from any other state-sponsored actors over the last two years."
US imposes new sanctions on China by September 30?
Yes 21% · No 80%
View full market & trade on Polymarket
"But the hallmark of many operations has been their exploitation of edge devices to gain initial access," it said, referring to hardware components positioned at the edge of a network. "We have also observed China-nexus threat groups leverage ORB networks for reconnaissance against defense industrial targets, which complicates detection and attribution."
Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 17:20
Continue reading...
[ H/T ZeroHedge ]
