The United States today imposed sanctions on a Beijing-based cyber hacking group with links to the Chinese government, accusing it of targeting “sensitive” infrastructure of the US government.
The US Treasury Department said it had targeted integrity Technology Group for its role in multiple cyber attacks since 2021 against US entities, most of them in “sensitive infrastructure sectors”.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said integrity Tech was a”major contractor with the government of the people’s Republic of China and has links to the Ministry of State Security”.
Guidance from the Chinese government
Miller added that hackers working for the Chinese company, known in the private sector as “flax Typhoon”: “they were working at the direction of the government of the people’s Republic of China, targeting sensitive infrastructure in the United States and abroad.
“The Treasury Department will not hesitate to hold hackers and their sponsors accountable for their actions,”said Bradley Smith, Acting Deputy Treasury Secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
The Treasury Department announced in a letter to Congress, seen by AFP, that it was hit by a Chinese-backed cyberattack in early December, but it did not lead to the disclosure of classified data.
According to the letter, the attack affected several workstations and unclassified documents at the Treasury Department through a breach of a security program developed by a private company called “Beyond Trust”, and the attack was carried out “according to available indications by a financially supported entity from China”.
In its statement on Friday, the Treasury Department said that “malicious Chinese actors” were responsible for the” recent targeting of the Treasury Department’s IT infrastructure, “but did not accuse integrity tech of being behind the attack.
