Us Government Confirms Arrest Of Chinese National Accused Of Stealing Covid Research And Mass-hacking Email Servers

In Brief

The U.S. Justice Department has confirmed nan arrest of Chinese nationalist Xu Zewei, an alleged prolific statement hacker who carried retired cyberattacks for China. Xu was arrested successful Italy astatine nan petition of U.S. prosecutors.

Xu and different Chinese national, Zhang Yu, who remains astatine large, are accused successful a nine-charge indictment of “hacking and stealing important COVID-19 research” from U.S. universities during February 2020. The DOJ said Xu worked for a institution called Shanghai Powerock Network, which conducted hacking operations for nan Chinese government.

The alleged hackers are besides accused of nan wide hacks of Microsoft Exchange servers opening successful March 2021. The hackers, publically referred to as a group called Hafnium, collapsed into much than 60,000 self-hosted Exchange servers tally by mostly mini businesses crossed nan United States, allowing nan theft of backstage institution mailboxes and reside books. 

Hafnium has since launched a caller hacking campaign, dubbed Silk Typhoon, which researchers opportunity is known for hacking into large companies and authorities agencies. 

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