Federal authorities seized two Chinese state-sponsored hacking platforms Wednesday after the tools were used in computer intrusion activity targeting NASA, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Energy, the Department of Justice, Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Senate.
The platforms, known as QScan and QTRouter, were built and run by a China-based group called QTFY that sold hacking services to China’s Ministry of State Security and People’s Liberation Army. QScan infected thousands of everyday internet-connected devices around the world. Those devices were then folded into QTRouter, a network designed to hide the PRC origin of the attacks.
Because key web addresses were hard-wired into the software, the court-ordered seizures shut both platforms down. Officials called the move part of a wider push to dismantle Chinese government-linked hacking operations that have targeted U.S. critical infrastructure for years.
