Michael Howie
HAMMOND -- A hacker from China faces federal accusations of attempting to hack into firewall devices worldwide, including in Northwest Indiana.
A grand jury indictment, filed Sept. 19 and unsealed Tuesday, charges Guan Tianfeng, 30, with conspiring to commit computer fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
According to the indictment, Tianfeng worked for a China-based private company, Sichuan Silence Information Technology Co. Ltd., that sold hacking services to Chinese government agencies from July 2018 to May 2020.
Tianfeng and other unnamed co-conspirators allegedly infected approximately 81,000 firewall devices sold by Sophos Ltd., an IT company based in the United Kingdom that sells cybersecurity products.
More than 23,000 of the infected firewalls were located in the United States. Many were in the Northern District of Indiana.
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The primary purpose of a firewall is to secure a network from cyberattacks.
"Guan Tianfeng and his co-conspirators placed thousands of computer networks, including a network in the Northern District of Indiana, at risk by conducting this attack," U.S. Attorney Clifford Johnson said.
Tianfeng and others allegedly "obtained internet domains, servers and firewalls to test malicious computer code for exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in an identified, widely used firewall, testing such code, and ultimately using that code to conduct mass, indiscriminate intrusions targeting such firewalls worldwide," the indictment states.
A zero-day exploit is a previously unknown vulnerability in a computer software or hardware product that can be used in a cyberattack.
Over three days in April of 2020, Tianfeng allegedly used the zero-day exploit to deploy malware on 81,000 firewalls owned by thousands of businesses across the world.
Feds believe Tianfeng intentionally accessed computers in the United States without authorization. In doing so, he allegedly obtained information from a U.S. government entity.
His actions caused software damage to at least one computer used by the U.S. government, the indictment alleges.
The code Tianfeng installed stole victims' usernames and passwords. If the victim tried to reboot their device, the code would attack every Windows-based computer on the victim's network with ransomware -- a type of malicious software that prevents a user from accessing data stored on their device.
The U.S. State Department on Tuesday announced it is offering a reward of up to $10 million to anyone who has information about Tianfeng or his tech company.
Feds believe Tianfeng is currently living in Sichuan Province, China. He also has ties to or may visit Bangkok, Thailand, they say.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury has issued sanctions against Tianfeng and Sichuan Silence, it said.
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Public safety reporter
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