Hiring hackers to steal information from foreign countries
A massive data leak from a Chinese cybersecurity company reveals that Chinese state security agents pay these companies’ hackers tens of thousands of pounds to collect data from their targets, which include foreign governments.
According to The Guardian, over 500 leaked files from the Chinese company ISoon have been posted on the website Github. These files indicate that some of the targets of Chinese hackers are NATO and the UK Foreign Office. This revelation exposes the Chinese government’s efforts to hire hackers, which the head of UK security services has called a huge challenge for the country.
The mentioned files, which include a mix of chat archives, catalogs, and company data samples, demonstrate the scope of China’s information-gathering operations. It appears that ISoon has also collaborated with another Chinese hacker company named Chengdu 404, whose hackers have been accused by the US Department of Justice of attacking American companies.
It seems that some of this data was collected by hackers based on specific criteria, but there are also instances where specific contracts with a public security office in China for collecting certain types of data are mentioned.