Hacker who allegedly carried out cyberattacks for China is extradited to U.S.

A antheral accused of carrying retired cyberattacks connected behalf of the Chinese authorities has been extradited to the United States, according to his lawyer. 

Last year, the U.S. Justice Department accused Xu Zewei of moving arsenic a contractor for the Chinese Ministry of State Security to behaviour a bid of cyberattacks. Prosecutors alleged Xu and co-conspirator Zhang Yu targeted respective U.S. universities successful aboriginal 2020 to bargain probe related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2 besides allegedly hacked thousands of email servers moving Microsoft Exchange opening March 2021, arsenic portion of an “indiscriminate” run attributed to a Chinese-backed hacking radical known arsenic Hafnium, and aboriginal Silk Typhoon.

Xu was arrested successful Italy past twelvemonth astatine the petition of U.S. authorities. His lawyer successful Italy, Simona Candido, told TechCrunch that Xu was extradited to the United States connected Saturday, and that helium is present successful detention successful Houston, Texas. 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Prison’s website, a antheral with the aforesaid sanction is successful custody astatine the Federal Detention Center successful Houston. 

Xu’s lawyer successful the United States, Dan Cogdell, was scheduled to look astatine a proceeding successful Houston connected Monday, according to tribunal records. Cogdell told TechCrunch that helium recovered retired astir the proceeding earlier connected Monday. 

Angela Dodge, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office successful the Southern District of Texas, which is prosecuting Xu’s case, acknowledged receipt of an email but did not instantly respond to TechCrunch’s questions astir Xu.

As the Justice Department said erstwhile it initially announced charges against the accused hackers, Xu allegedly worked for Shanghai Powerock Network, a institution successful China that prosecutors said “conducted hacking” for Beijing. Xu and different hackers allegedly reported their activities straight to Chinese authorities officials successful Shanghai.

Along with Zhang, helium was portion of the Hafnium radical that allegedly took vantage of antecedently undiscovered information flaws successful Microsoft Exchange servers with the purpose of hacking into respective American organizations, including defence contractors, instrumentality firms, deliberation tanks, and infectious illness researchers. 

According to prosecutors, Hafnium hackers targeted much than 60,000 entities successful the U.S. and were palmy successful hacking much than 12,700 of them. 

The Chinese Embassy successful Washington D.C. did not respond to a petition for comment.  

The Financial Times reported that the Chinese Foreign Ministry opposed Xu’s extradition and accused the U.S. authorities of “fabricating cases.” 

For years, the U.S. authorities has charged suspected Chinese hackers, galore of whom stay astatine large. In 2022, Yanjun Xu was sentenced to 20 years successful situation for hacking crimes successful what the DOJ said was the archetypal lawsuit wherever a Chinese authorities quality serviceman had been extradited to the United States.