The US Justice Department announced on Wednesday that it had neutralized a cyber-hacking network dubbed “Flax Typhoon” acting on behalf of China and which had taken control of more than 200,000 devices worldwide, according to Washington.
In February, US authorities had already claimed to have foiled a large-scale hacking operation instigated by China of computer routers that they said targeted the country’s civilian infrastructure. Beijing had rejected “baseless accusations.”
The devices, of various types, such as IP cameras and digital video recorders, were connected in a “botnet”, a network of machines hacked to carry out malicious operations, controlled by Integrity Technology Group, a company based in Beijing, according to a statement from the US Department of Justice.
The operation, authorized by a federal court in Pennsylvania, in the northeastern United States, consisted of taking control of the cyber hackers’ computer infrastructure and neutralizing the malware implanted in the devices, the ministry explained.
“The Department of Justice is pursuing Chinese government-backed hacking groups that target the devices of innocent Americans and pose a serious threat to our national security,” Secretary Merrick Garland said in the statement.
In August 2023, IT giant Microsoft revealed that a China-based hacking group dubbed “Flax Typhoon”, active since 2021, had attacked dozens of government agencies and crucial industries in Taiwan for espionage purposes.
The FBI investigation “corroborated Microsoft’s findings and established that Flax Typhon successfully attacked multiple U.S. and foreign companies, universities, government agencies, telecommunications operators, and media groups,” the Justice Department said.
