Amid the Trump administration’s efforts to curb the Chinese Communist Party’s influence in the U.S., the Department of Justice announced the arrest of a CCP agent accused of worldwide computer intrusions related to COVID-19 research.
Xu Zewei, 33, and Zhang Yu, 44, are facing a nine-count indictment for allegedly “hacking and stealing crucial COVID-19 research at the behest of the Chinese government while that same government was simultaneously withholding information about the virus and its origins,” stated Nicholas Ganjei, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.
‘Through HAFNIUM, the CCP targeted over 60,000 U.S. entities, successfully victimizing more than 12,700 in order to steal sensitive information.’
Federal authorities alleged that the Ministry of State Security’s Shanghai State Security Bureau directed Xu to perform computer intrusions between February 2020 and June 2021.
Xu allegedly targeted American universities, immunologists, and virologists to obtain information on COVID-19 research related to vaccines, treatment, and testing.
In February 2020, Xu informed the SSSB that he had breached the “network of a research university located in the Southern District of Texas,” the DOJ reported. An SSSB officer then reportedly instructed him to target email accounts belonging to certain virologists and immunologists.
Brett Leatherman, the assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, explained that Xu and his co-conspirators later operated as a group known as HAFNIUM, which “exploited zero-day vulnerabilities in U.S. systems to steal additional research.”
“Through HAFNIUM, the CCP targeted over 60,000 U.S. entities, successfully victimizing more than 12,700 in order to steal sensitive information,” Leatherman said.
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In late 2020, HAFNIUM allegedly breached the Microsoft Exchange Server, impacting computers worldwide, including a law firm and another university in the Southern District of Texas.
Microsoft announced the breach in March 2021, describing HAFNIUM as a “state-sponsored” group “operating out of China.” It noted that the hackers had targeted “infectious disease researchers, law firms, higher education institutions, defense contractors, policy think tanks, and NGOs.”
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Xu was arrested in Milan, Italy, on July 3 at the request of the U.S. government and now awaits extradition proceedings. He was charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to cause damage to and obtain information by unauthorized access to protected computers to commit wire fraud and to commit identity theft, obtaining information by unauthorized access to protected computers, intentional damage to a protected computer, and aggravated identity theft.
Ganjei stated, “The Southern District of Texas has been waiting years to bring Xu to justice and that day is nearly at hand. As this case shows, even if it takes years, we will track hackers down and make them answer for their crimes. The United States does not forget.”
The DOJ reported that Zhang remains at large.
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