LAGOS, Nigeria(VOICE OF NAIJA)-The United States of America has announced a $10m reward to anyone with information that will lead to the arrest of a Chinese national and his accomplices accused of cybersecurity and wire fraud conspiracies.
The state department maintained that the accused, 30-year old, Guan Tianfeng, lives somewhere in the Sichuan Province in China.
In the indictment unsealed on Tuesday, Guan, is charged with conspiracy to commit both wire fraud and computer fraud.
While Guan and his accomplices worked at Sichuan Silence Information Technology Co Ltd, they allegedly exploited the vulnerability in firewalls sold by a UK-based cybersecurity company Sophos Ltd.
However, sanctions were levied on the company by the US Treasury Department.
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The US Deputy Attorney General, Lisa Monaco, in a statement said, “The defendant and his co-conspirators exploited a vulnerability in tens of thousands of network security devices, infecting them with malware designed to steal information from victims around the world.”
In April 2020, a concurrent attack on 81,000 firewall devices with the intent to steal personal data (usernames and passwords) and to infect the computers with ransomware was launched on a global scale.
The US Treasury reported that the US, suffered over 23,000 firewalls breach. Out of this huge number, 36 firewalls were in charge of protecting “critical infrastructure companies’ systems.”
Reacting to the breach, FBI agent Herbert Stapleton, stated, “The zero-day vulnerability Guan Tianfeng and his co-conspirators found and exploited affected firewalls owned by businesses across the United States,”
“If Sophos had not rapidly identified the vulnerability and deployed a comprehensive response, the damage could have been far more severe.”
It was stated on the indictment that the company Guan and his accomplices worked for, Sichuan Silence Information Technology Co Ltd, through its services hacked and sold data to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, as well as various government entities, and businesses in the country.
