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US government confirms arrest of Chinese national accused of stealing COVID research and mass-hacking email servers


Accused hacker and Chinese national Xu Zewei was arrested in Italy at the request of U.S. prosecutors.

The U.S. Justice Department has confirmed the arrest of Chinese national Xu Zewei, an alleged prolific contract hacker who carried out cyberattacks for China. Xu and another Chinese national Zhang Yu, who remains at large, are accused in a nine-charge indictment of “hacking and stealing crucial COVID-19 research” from U.S. universities during February 2020. The hackers, publicly referred to as a group called Hafnium, broke into more than 60,000 self-hosted Exchange servers run by mostly small businesses across the United States, allowing the theft of private company mailboxes and address books.

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