A hacker has reportedly made an attempt to sell a significant amount of sensitive data believed to have been taken from a state-operated Chinese supercomputer. The stolen information includes top-secret defense documents and missile diagrams, totaling over 10 petabytes of classified data allegedly obtained from the National Supercomputing Centre in Tianjin. This breach is believed to be one of the largest incidents of hacking involving sensitive Chinese data, with a Telegram account named FlamingChina allegedly sharing part of the stolen information online.
According to reports, the leaked data encompasses research in aerospace engineering, military studies, bioinformatics, and fusion simulation. The FlamingChina group claims that the data is associated with prominent organizations in China, including the aviation and defense technology sectors. Cybersecurity experts investigating the incident revealed that the hackers had been able to access the supercomputer unnoticed over several months.
An analysis of the stolen data by cybersecurity firm SentinelOne revealed technical files and defense equipment diagrams marked as “secret” in Chinese. Dakota Cary, a consultant at the firm, noted that the samples matched the type of data typically found in a supercomputing center, indicating a wide range of clients utilizing the facility.
In a related development, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre issued a warning about elite Russian hackers targeting routers in the UK to access personal data. The hackers, identified as a Russian state-linked group known as APT28, are reportedly rerouting internet traffic through malicious servers to intercept login credentials and other sensitive information. The NCSC urged organizations and network defenders to be vigilant and follow recommended security measures to protect against such cyber threats.
