Security News > 2024 > January > US shorts China's Volt Typhoon crew targeting America's criticals

The US Justice Department and FBI may have scored a win over Chinese state-sponsored snoops trying to break into American critical infrastructure.

Law enforcement obtained a court order granting them permission to "Remotely disable aspects of the Chinese hacking campaign."

This criminal crew's campaign first came to light in May 2023, after Microsoft and intelligence agencies from the Five Eyes nations disclosed that Volt Typhoon had accessed networks belonging to US critical infrastructure organizations as far back as 2021.

American government officials are reportedly concerned about the Chinese hackers disrupting US critical networks, including military installations, utilities, and internet service providers.

The reported take-down follows a CISA emergency directive issued earlier this month requiring federal agencies to apply mitigations to Ivanti Connect Secure devices, after reports that these buggy VPNs had been hacked by Chinese nation-state attackers.

While the US government agency did not attributed the exploits to a specific gang, Goldstein said the Feds have a "Persistent concern" about China-backed criminals targeting government networks and these types of devices.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/30/fbi_china_volt/