An anonymous reader cites a PBS report. Chinese police are investigating an unauthorized and highly unusual online dump of documents from a private security contractor with ties to China's top police agency and other branches of government. The document houses a catalog of apparent hacking activities and tools for spying on both Chinese and foreign nationals. The obvious targets for the tools provided by Affected Companies: I-Soon include areas of China where significant anti-government protests have occurred, such as Hong Kong and areas with large Muslim populations in China's far western Xinjiang region. This includes ethnic groups and dissidents. The leak of a trove of documents late last week and subsequent investigation was confirmed by two Yishun employees, known in Mandarin as Anshun, who have ties to the powerful Ministry of Public Security. This dump contains hundreds of pages of contracts, marketing presentations, product manuals, customer and employee Contains a list of members. They detail the methods used by Chinese authorities to surveil foreign dissidents, hack other countries, and promote pro-Beijing rhetoric on social media.
The documents show that Issun apparently hacked networks across Central and Southeast Asia, as well as in Hong Kong and the autonomous island of Taiwan, which is claimed by the Chinese government. This hacking tool is used by Chinese state agencies to unmask users of social media platforms outside China, such as X (formerly known as Twitter), infiltrate emails, and hide the online activities of foreign agencies. used. It also describes devices disguised as power strips or batteries that can be used to compromise Wi-Fi networks. I-Soon and Chinese police are investigating how the files were leaked, two I-Soon employees told The Associated Press. One of the employees said Mr. Yi-sun had a meeting about the breach on Wednesday and was told that there was no major impact on his work and that he should “continue to work as usual.” The Associated Press is not publishing the names of the employees, who gave their last names in accordance with Chinese practice, due to concerns about possible retaliation. The cause of the leak is unknown. John Condra, an analyst at cybersecurity firm Record Future, said this is the most significant breach to date involving a company “suspected of providing cyber espionage and targeted intrusion services to Chinese security services.” He said that. Citing leaked documents, Mr. Condra said Mr. Yisun's targets included the government, foreign telecommunications companies, and online gambling companies within China.
