On Wednesday, the United States announced that it had dismantled a Chinese cyber operation linked to breaches at various federal institutions, including the U.S. Justice Department, NASA, the Federal Reserve, the Senate, and other critical government entities.

The U.S. Justice Department revealed in a statement that it had seized domains associated with two hacking platforms named “QScan” and “QTRouter,” which were allegedly part of this cyber campaign.

An affidavit indicated that victims of the hackers included the U.S. Department of Energy, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), along with four unnamed companies located in the United States and South Korea.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond promptly to a request for a statement. Beijing consistently denies any involvement in hacking incidents.

According to the Justice Department, the hacking platforms were operated by a company based in China, the Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Company, which reportedly served clients including China’s civilian intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security, and the military, the People’s Liberation Army.

Nanjing Xinjiuwei has not yet provided a response to requests for comment.

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The affidavit detailed that the hackers’ infrastructure had been leveraged to infiltrate crucial infrastructure and other sensitive networks within the U.S. and globally since at least 2018.

The extent of access obtained varied, according to the affidavit. In August 2019, the hackers unsuccessfully attempted to breach NASA’s networks by exploiting a vulnerability in a virtual private network. In September 2024, they executed intrusions at three unnamed laboratories of the Energy Department, the NIH, an unidentified HHS agency, and a U.S. manufacturer of security devices, as outlined in the affidavit.

Requests for comments from representatives of the agencies and organizations identified by the Justice Department as targets have not yet received responses. In recent years, various hacking campaigns linked to China have breached numerous sensitive networks of both U.S. governmental and private sectors.

In March, the FBI informed Congress that hackers had accessed certain networks associated with individuals under FBI investigation, with subsequent reports linking this breach to China. Additionally, Chinese-affiliated hackers have been connected to breaches involving certain networks of the U.S. House of Representatives and multiple major telecommunications firms over the past few years.

Experts monitoring Chinese cyber activities assert that private contractors regularly conduct significant intrusions on behalf of various Chinese governmental entities.

“Over the last decade, the number of companies providing specialized offensive services has surged,” stated Dakota Cary, a China expert at cybersecurity firm SentinelOne.