FBI seizes Flax Typhoon tools — Fortune

In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice announced the seizure of the Microscan and FishHub tools. According to U.S. officials, they were used by the Flax Typhoon group, which the FBI assesses is linked to the Chinese government, Fortune reports.

Tools disabled

Microscan and FishHub were used for network scanning, phishing, and hacking targets in the United States and other countries. FBI and Justice Department representatives said that as a result of the operation, these tools were rendered inoperable, dealing a blow to the hacking operation.

Jason Bilnoski, deputy assistant director of the FBI's cyber division, told the Associated Press that the bureau seeks to deprive cybercriminals of their ability to act by targeting their infrastructure, funds, and tools. He called this hacking operation indiscriminate and reckless.

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Campaign targets

According to U.S. authorities, the hackers targeted, among others, an unnamed energy company in the United States, airports in Japan and Poland, universities in Taiwan, an international non-governmental organization, and Taiwanese critical infrastructure companies.

The FBI said that Microscan and FishHub were operated by the Chinese information security company Integrity Technology Group. The bureau had previously stated that the company is closely linked to the Chinese government and is the entity identified in the private sector as Flax Typhoon.

In September 2024, the FBI reported disrupting a botnet linked to Flax Typhoon. According to the bureau, malware had been installed on more than 200,000 consumer devices, including cameras, video recorders, home and office routers. According to the FBI, this network of infected devices was used for cybercrime, including stealing confidential information from victims' networks.