Micah McCartney
AChinese national has been indicted and a cybersecurity company has been sanctioned over their alleged involvement in a state-affiliated hacking ring that targeted networks worldwide.
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana has issued an arrest warrant for Guan Tianfeng, 30, charging him with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Guan is accused of working with co-conspirators to exploit vulnerabilities in firewalls sold by U.K.-based security software and hardware company Sophos.
According to the indictment, Guan helped develop and test malware that exploited a zero-day vulnerability—a flaw unknown to developers or security teams, making it vulnerable to immediate attack. The group allegedly disguised their activity by registering domains designed to look like they belonged to Sophos.
Sophos detected the breach and patched the affected firewalls within two days, prompting the hackers to modify their malware so any attempt to remove it would trigger ransomware, which locks users out of their systems until a ransom is paid.
While the ransomware encryption failed, the Justice Department noted "the conspirators' disregard for the harm that they would cause to victims."
No comments:
Post a Comment