The United States Department of Justice on Wednesday announced indictments against five Chinese nationals believed to be part of a state-sponsored hacking group known as APT41.
Also known as Winnti, Barium, Wicked Panda and Wicked Spider, the hackers allegedly launched cyberattacks on more than 100 companies in the United States and abroad.
Their targets, the DoJ says, include software and video game companies, computer hardware makers, telecom providers, and social media organizations, but also governments, non-profit entities, universities, and think tanks, not to mention pro-democracy politicians and activists in Hong Kong.
In August 2019 and August 2020, a federal grand jury returned two separate indictments charging the five Chinese nationals with facilitating “theft of source code, software code signing certificates, customer account data, and valuable business information,” the DoJ revealed. The hackers also engaged in ransomware and crypto-jacking attacks.
The five residents of China that the U.S. announced charges against are all on the FBI’s most wanted list: Zhang Haoran, 35, Tan Dailin, 35, Jiang Lizhi, 35, Qian Chuan, 39, and Fu Qiang, 37.
They have been charged with multiple counts of conspiracy, aggravated identity theft, access device fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), among others.
The August 2019 indictment alleges that Zhang and Tan targeted high-technology and similar organizations and video game companies.
The August 2020 indictment charges Jiang, Qian, and Fu with conducting the affairs of a Chinese company named Chengdu 404 Network Technology “through a pattern of racketeering activity involving computer intrusion offenses affecting over 100 victim companies, organiza ..
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