How China’s patriotic “Naruto” became an elite cyber spy in the United States

Topsec and Venustech are two companies that allegedly assisted with these efforts. Topsec hired many former Naruto, including the founder of the Chinese Hawkel Alliance, and the founder of Topsec once admitted in an interview that PLA directed his company. In 2015, TOPSEC was linked to state-sponsored network operations, including the U.S. National Anthem vulnerability.

Many of the tools used by the Chinese apartment community over the years have been constructed by Honkers, which PLA and MSS mined for vulnerability research and development. In 1999, Huang Xin, a member of the Celtics, released the distant Trojan Horse “Glacier”. The following year, he and Yang Yong (Coolc) of Xfocus released X-Scan, a tool that scans for network vulnerabilities that is still used by hackers in China today. In 2003, two members of Honker Union released Htran, a tool to mask the attacker’s location by rerouting traffic through proxy computers that have been used by Chinese APTs. Tan and NCPH member Zhou Jibing (WHG) are believed to have created Puginx Backdoor in 2008, which has been used by more than 10 Chinese apartments. According to Benincasa, Zhou developed further production of Shadowpad, which has been used by APT 41 and others.

Over the years, leaks against former Naruto and U.S. prosecutions have revealed their alleged post-Hunger spy career, and the use of for-profit companies in state hacking operations. The latter includes I-Soon and Integrity Tech, both launched by former Naruto.

Wu Haibo (close), formerly Green Army and 0x557, launched the I-Soon in 2010. Last year, someone leaked internal I-Soon files and chat logs and revealed the company’s spy work on behalf of MSS and MPS. In March, the United States sued eight I-SOON employees and two members of Congress for hacking operations against U.S. government agencies, the Asian Foreign Ministry, dissidents and the media.

Integrity Tech was founded in 2010 by former Celtics member Cai Jingjing (CBIRD) and was approved by the United States this year by contacting global infrastructure hackers.

This year, the United States also sued former Celtics members Zhou and Wu Wei for a state hacking operation, and approved Zhou and approved links to APT 27. In addition to working in state-sponsored hacking, he also operates a data penetration service that sells some of the stolen data to customers including intelligence agencies.

This is unlike early American hackers, who also transitioned to becoming the founders of cybersecurity companies and were also recruited by the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency or hired by contractors to perform hacking operations for U.S. operations. But unlike the United States, China’s entire social intelligence authorities have forced some Chinese citizens and companies to cooperate with the state to conduct espionage.

“I think China thought from the beginning, ‘We can choose [the Honkers] For national interests. ‘” Kotz said. “And… because many young people have a patriotic tendency from the beginning, they kind of look like this, saying: And, many of them are starting to realize that they can get rich. ”