US Charges 12 Alleged Spies in China's Freewheeling Hacker-for-Hire Ecosystem

Only rarely does the West get a glimpse inside the vast hacker-for-hire contractor ecosystem that enables China's digital intrusion campaigns worldwide. Now a new set of criminal charges against a dozen Chinese nationals, including two government officials, accuses them of a vast espionage campaign that included breaching the US Treasury, and goes as far as revealing the internal communications of some of those alleged hackers, their tools, and their business relationships. The US Department of Justice on Wednesday announced the indictments of 12 Chinese individuals accused of more than a decade of hacker intrusions around the world, including eight staffers for the contractor i-Soon, two officials at China's Ministry of Public Security who allegedly worked with them, and two other alleged hackers who are said to be part of the Chinese hacker group APT27 or Silk Typhoon, which prosecutors say was involved in the US Treasury breach late last year. “Today, we are exposing the Chinese g ... Read full article.