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The US government has announced sanctions against a Chinese organization with ties to Salt Typhoon, the hacking group responsible for the the largest telecommunications hack in US history.
The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced on Friday which had sanctioned a China-based cyber security company known as Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology, which it says is directly linked to the Chinese-backed Salt Typhoon hacking group.
Salt Typhoon was recently identified as carrying out the largest telecommunications hack in US history, having infiltrated at least nine US telecommunications and internet providers, including AT&T and Verizon, to gain access to private communications of senior US government officials and political figures.
The hackers also hacked into systems that law enforcement agencies use for court-authorized collection of customer data, potentially accessing sensitive data such as the identities of Chinese targets of the surveillance of the United States.
In its Friday press release, OFAC said Sichuan Juxinhe had “direct involvement in the exploitation of these US telecommunications and Internet service companies.”
Treasury pirates sanctioned
OFAC also announced sanctions against Yin Kecheng, a Shanghai-based cyber actor who US officials say was responsible for the recent widespread hacking of the US Treasury.
The hack, which happened in late December, saw hackers use a private key stolen from BeyondTrust – a cybersecurity company that provides identity access technology to large organizations and government departments – to acquire a remote access to certain Treasury employee workstations.
The cyber attack allowed the hackers – another Chinese state-backed group known as Silk Typhoon – to target various departments in the US Treasury, including its sanctions office.
According to OFAC, Yin Kecheng has been a cyber actor for more than a decade and is affiliated with China’s Ministry of State Security, an intelligence and security agency responsible for the country’s foreign intelligence collection.
U.S. Treasury official Adewale O. Adeyemo said in a statement Friday: “The Treasury Department will continue to use its authority to crack down on malicious cyber actors who target the American people, our companies and the United States government, including those targeting the Treasury Department in particular.
At the beginning of the month, the The US government has sanctioned another cyber security company based in China about his alleged links to a government-backed hacker group known as Flax Typhoon. The Treasury said the company, Integrity Technology Group, had been involved in “multiple incidents of computer intrusions against U.S. victims,” including critical U.S. infrastructure.
