U.S. Treasury Names Sichuan Silence Over 2020 Attacks

Indictment made against company and an employee, for his use of a zero-day exploit.

A Chinese cybersecurity company has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury over an ambitious cyber-attack.

According to media reports, Sichuan Silence Information Technology Company is accused of deploying malicious software to around 81,000 firewalls run by thousands of companies worldwide in April 2020.

In its statement, the Treasury 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."

Also named in the indictment was an employee of Sichuan Silence, Guan Tianfeng, who apparently discovered and used a zero-day exploit against the firewalls to deploy the malware.

Advanced Persistent threats (APTs), state adversaries, nation states Government Published: 13 December