For years, China's military and intelligence agencies, which carry out hacking campaigns against targets around the globe, have grown increasingly reliant on a vast web of proxy devices that enable and obfuscate their targeting. Now the FBI has named and disrupted one key network of those proxies—and in doing so, revealed just how extensively the hackers who used it reached into American government institutions and US critical infrastructure.
\n\nOn Wednesday, the Department of Justice announced the takedown of two tools, known as QTRouter and QScan, used by a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group the DOJ identified as QTFY, which is allegedly part of a Chinese government contractor called Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Company. According to prosecutors and an FBI affidavit used to seize domains that those tools relied on, the company gave its customers access to botnets of hacked internet-of-things (IoT) devices and co-opted commercial proxy services. The company's customers—allegedly including the Ministry of State Security and the People's Liberation Army—then used those proxy services as relay points to carry out hacking campaigns stretching back as early as 2018, according to the US government.
\n\nThe DOJ says the hackers breached a staggering list of US victim agencies, including NASA, the US…
Original source: https://www.wired.com/