Leaked Documents Expose Chinese Government’s Utilization of Private Hacking Company
In a shocking revelation, leaked documents have exposed the inner workings of a private Chinese hacking company that is allegedly utilized by the Chinese government. This trove of documents, which includes contracts, presentations, and client lists, was confirmed to be authentic by two employees of the private security contractor I-Soon. The documents were published online last week, providing a rare glimpse into the tactics employed by Chinese authorities to monitor individuals, governments, and organizations worldwide.
The leak, which amounts to a staggering 190 megabytes of data, has sent analysts scrambling to analyze its contents. The significance of this dump cannot be overstated, as it sheds light on the secretive world of Chinese state-backed hacking. The Associated Press reports that Chinese police are currently investigating the leak, although it remains unclear who released the documents.
I-Soon, also known as Anxun Xinxi, is an information technology services consulting company based in Shanghai. According to Crunchbase, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and over 50 regional security agencies in China were among its clients. While the company’s website has been disabled since the leak, it is widely known that I-Soon offers third-party hacking services.
The leaked documents do not contain actual data obtained through hacking services. Instead, they provide valuable insights into the operation’s modus operandi and its clientele. The New York Times, which reviewed the documents, uncovered some startling revelations about the services offered by I-Soon. These include accessing the private website of traffic police in Vietnam for a fee of $15,000 and providing software worth $100,000 to carry out disinformation campaigns and hack accounts on X.
One particularly alarming finding is that Chinese clients could access personal information linked to social media accounts like Facebook for a whopping $278,000. While experts note that the hacking tools and methods revealed in the documents are not groundbreaking, they emphasize the significance of gaining an inside look into China’s state-backed hacking operations.
The leaked documents also shed light on the targets of I-Soon’s hacking services. The Washington Post reports that the company was contracted to extract data from at least 20 foreign governments and territories, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, and the U.K. The analysis conducted by The Post revealed successful data extraction from various targets, such as India’s 95.2 gigabytes of immigration data and South Korea’s LG U Plus telecom provider’s three terabytes of call log data.
Other targets identified in the leaked documents include Taiwan, where I-Soon obtained a sample of 459 gigabytes of road-mapping data. Thailand’s Foreign Ministry, intelligence agency, and Senate were also targeted, along with British government offices such as the Home, Foreign, and Treasury offices. Additionally, prominent think tanks like Chatham House and the International Institute for Strategic Studies were not spared from I-Soon’s hacking activities.
The New York Times further reports that the leaked documents revealed a campaign to closely monitor ethnic minorities in China and online gambling companies. These revelations paint a disturbing picture of the extent to which the Chinese government is willing to go in its pursuit of surveillance and control.
As the world grapples with the implications of this massive leak, it is clear that Chinese state-backed hacking poses a significant threat to individuals, governments, and organizations worldwide. The leaked documents serve as a stark reminder of the need for robust cybersecurity measures and international cooperation to combat such malicious activities.