The US Department of Justice has confirmed the arrest of China’s National Xu Zewei. This is suspected of a prolific contract hacker who cyberattacked for China. Xu was arrested in Italy at the request of a US prosecutor.
Xu and another Chinese national Changyu have been charged with nine charges in “Critical Covid-19 Research on Hacking and Theft” by a US university in February 2020. The DOJ said Xu worked for a company called Shanghai Powerrock Network, which carried out Chinese government hacking operations.
The suspicious hacker has been accused of massive hacking of Microsoft Exchange servers in March 2021. A group called Hafnium and publicly-public hackers have broken into more than 60,000 self-hosted exchange servers run by most small businesses across the United States, allowing private companies to theft of mail boxes and address books.
Hafnium has since launched a new hacking campaign called Silk Timpson. This says researchers are known for hacking into large corporations and government agencies.
