US Seizes Domains Tied to Alleged Chinese Hacking Tools Targeting Federal Agencies

The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI said they seized internet domains linked to hacking tools that the government attributes to a China state-sponsored group. The action, announced in a statement on Wednesday, targeted infrastructure the DOJ says was used to scan, infect and exploit Internet of Things (IoT) devices in attacks on federal agencies and multiple industries.

According to the DOJ, a group identified as QTFY was responsible for the activity, which relied on two pieces of malware called QScan and QTRouter. As reported by Tom's Hardware, the government says QScan scans and automatically infects thousands of IoT devices worldwide, which are then folded into the QTRouter network. The DOJ described that network as a botnet that also functioned as an obfuscation layer to hide the source of malicious traffic.