US offers reward for Chinese hacker linked to potentially deadly cyberattack

The United States sanctioned a Chinese cybersecurity company over an ambitious cyberattack that US Treasury officials say could have killed people.

The Treasury said in a statement on Tuesday that the Chengdu-based Sichuan Silence Information Technology Company and one of its employees, Guan Tianfeng, deployed malicious software to more than 80,000 firewalls run by thousands of companies worldwide in April 2020.

The FBI is offering US$10 million for information about the 30-year-old, his company, or their alleged hacking activities.

The malicious software not only stole data, but it was used to deploy ransomware, which paralyses corporate networks by encrypting data.

The statement said three dozen firewalls were protecting the systems of critical infrastructure companies and that, had the hacking not been thwarted or mitigated, the potential impact “could have resulted in serious injury or loss of human life”.

In particular, the statement said that an energy company targeted in Sichuan Silence’s hacking campaign was “actively involved in drilling” during the attack. Had the hacking not been thwarted, the statement said, “it could have caused oil rigs to malfunction”.