{"id":236520,"date":"2026-04-28T05:04:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T09:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/28\/chinese-state-sponsored-contract-hacker-extradited-to-u-s-over-covid-19-research-cyberattacks-hstoday\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T05:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T09:30:07","slug":"chinese-state-sponsored-contract-hacker-extradited-to-u-s-over-covid-19-research-cyberattacks-hstoday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/28\/chinese-state-sponsored-contract-hacker-extradited-to-u-s-over-covid-19-research-cyberattacks-hstoday\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese State-Sponsored Contract Hacker Extradited to U.S. Over COVID-19 Research Cyberattacks \u2013 HSToday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chinese State-Sponsored Contract Hacker Extradited to U.S. Over COVID-19 Research Cyberattacks \u2013 HSToday<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.hstoday.us\/subject-matter-areas\/cybersecurity\/chinese-state-sponsored-contract-hacker-extradited-to-u-s-over-covid-19-research-cyberattacks\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-04-28 05:04:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.hstoday.us<\/a><\/p>\n

Xu Zewei (\u5f90\u6cfd\u4f1f), 34, of the People\u2019s Republic of China was extradited to the United States over the weekend and has appeared in U.S. District Court in Houston on a nine-count indictment\u00a0related to his involvement in computer intrusions between February 2020 and June 2021. Certain of those computer intrusions allegedly are part of the HAFNIUM computer intrusion campaign that compromised thousands of computers worldwide, including in the United States. Other intrusions targeted U.S. COVID-19 research during the height of the pandemic. Xu is charged along with Zhang Yu (\u5f20\u5b87), 44, who is also a PRC national.<\/p>\n

According to court documents, officers of the PRC\u2019s Ministry of State Security\u2019s (MSS) Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB) directed Xu to conduct this hacking. The MSS and SSSB are PRC intelligence services responsible for PRC\u2019s domestic counterintelligence, non-military foreign intelligence, and aspects of the PRC\u2019s political and domestic security. When Xu conducted the computer intrusions, he allegedly worked for a company named Shanghai Powerock Network Co. Ltd. (Powerock). Powerock was one of many \u201cenabling\u201d companies in the PRC that conducted hacking for the PRC government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States is committed to pursuing hackers who steal information from U.S. businesses and universities and threaten our cybersecurity,\u201d said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. \u201cI commend the prosecutors and investigators who have worked hard and sought justice for years in this investigation, and we look forward to proving our case in court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, Xu Zewei will stand in a federal courtroom to answer for crimes that struck at the heart of American science and security \u2014 allegedly stealing COVID-19 research from our universities when the world needed it most,\u201d said Acting U.S. Attorney John G.E. Marck for the Southern District of Texas. \u201cWe have pursued this moment across years and continents, and the…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chinese State-Sponsored Contract Hacker Extradited to U.S. Over COVID-19 Research Cyberattacks \u2013 HSToday https:\/\/www.hstoday.us\/subject-matter-areas\/cybersecurity\/chinese-state-sponsored-contract-hacker-extradited-to-u-s-over-covid-19-research-cyberattacks\/ Publish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":236521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hstoday.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/iStock-1137730846.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[96,57],"class_list":["post-236520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-hackerexploit","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236520"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236522,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236520\/revisions\/236522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}