Hacker who allegedly carried out cyberattacks for China is extradited to U.S.

A person accused of finishing up cyberattacks on behalf of the Chinese language authorities has been extradited to the US, based on his lawyer. 

Final yr, the U.S. Justice Division accused Xu Zewei of working as a contractor for the Chinese language Ministry of State Safety to conduct a collection of cyberattacks. Prosecutors alleged Xu and co-conspirator Zhang Yu focused a number of U.S. universities in early 2020 to steal analysis associated to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2 additionally allegedly hacked 1000’s of e-mail servers working Microsoft Change starting March 2021, as a part of an “indiscriminate” marketing campaign attributed to a Chinese language-backed hacking group referred to as Hafnium, and later Silk Hurricane.

Xu was arrested in Italy final yr on the request of U.S. authorities. His lawyer in Italy, Simona Candido, informed TechCrunch that Xu was extradited to the US on Saturday, and that he’s now in detention in Houston, Texas. 

Based on the U.S. Bureau of Jail’s web site, a person with the identical identify is in custody on the Federal Detention Middle in Houston. 

Xu’s lawyer in the US, Dan Cogdell, was scheduled to seem at a listening to in Houston on Monday, based on courtroom data. Cogdell informed TechCrunch that he discovered concerning the listening to earlier on Monday. 

Angela Dodge, a spokesperson for the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace within the Southern District of Texas, which is prosecuting Xu’s case, acknowledged receipt of an e-mail however didn’t instantly reply to TechCrunch’s questions on Xu.

Because the Justice Division stated when it initially announced charges towards the accused hackers, Xu allegedly labored for Shanghai Powerock Community, an organization in China that prosecutors stated “carried out hacking” for Beijing. Xu and different hackers allegedly reported their actions on to Chinese language state officers in Shanghai.

Together with Zhang, he was a part of the Hafnium group that allegedly took benefit of beforehand undiscovered safety flaws in Microsoft Change servers with the purpose of hacking into a number of American organizations, together with protection contractors, regulation companies, assume tanks, and infectious illness researchers. 

Based on prosecutors, Hafnium hackers focused greater than 60,000 entities within the U.S. and have been profitable in hacking greater than 12,700 of them. 

The Chinese language Embassy in Washington D.C. didn’t reply to a request for remark.  

The Monetary Instances reported that the Chinese language International Ministry opposed Xu’s extradition and accused the U.S. authorities of “fabricating circumstances.” 

For years, the U.S. authorities has charged suspected Chinese language hackers, lots of whom stay at giant. In 2022, Yanjun Xu was sentenced to twenty years in jail for hacking crimes in what the DOJ stated was the primary case the place a Chinese language authorities intelligence officer had been extradited to the US.