US Charges 12 Alleged Spies in China’s Freewheeling Hacker-for-Hire Ecosystem
Wired3 days ago
The US Department of Justice has indicted 12 Chinese nationals — including eight employees of Shanghai-based company i-Soon, two Ministry of Public Security officers, and two members of hacking group APT27 — for conducting extensive cyber espionage operations between 2016 and 2023.
i-Soon allegedly charged Chinese government agencies between $10K and $75K per successfully hacked email inbox, generating tens of millions in revenue while working with 43 bureaus across 31 provinces.
The hackers reportedly targeted various entities — including US government agencies, religious organizations, news outlets, defense contractors, and the US Treasury Department — accessed over 400 computers, and stole over 3K files.
The Chinese government has created a sophisticated hacker-for-hire ecosystem that provides plausible deniability while enabling widespread cyber espionage against US interests, threatening national security and compromising sensitive information across multiple sectors.
The US accusations embody hypocritical double standards from the world's largest hacking empire, which itself conducts cyberattacks against Chinese high-tech enterprises through intelligence agencies, making these charges groundless and politically motivated.