U.S. Charges Chinese Hacker for Exploiting Sophos Firewall Vulnerabilities

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Introduction to the Charges

In a significant action taken by the U.S. government, charges have been formally unsealed against Guan Tianfeng, a Chinese hacker alleged to have exploited a vulnerability in 81,000 Sophos firewall devices worldwide. This case sheds light on the increasing concern regarding cybersecurity and the implications of zero-day exploits.

The Accusations Against Guan Tianfeng

Guan Tianfeng, also known by his aliases Gbigmao and Gxiaomao, is believed to be associated with Sichuan Silence Information Technology Company. The charges against him include conspiracy to commit both computer fraud and wire fraud. This incident is part of a broader concern about hacking activities that target critical infrastructure through zero-day vulnerabilities.

Guan Tianfeng is wanted for his alleged role in conspiring to access Sophos firewalls without authorization, cause damage to them, and retrieve and exfiltrate data from both the firewalls themselves and the computers behind these firewalls,” the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said. “The exploit was used to infiltrate approximately 81,000 firewalls.

Guan and his co-conspirators designed the malware to steal information from firewalls,” the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said. “To better hide their activity, Guan and his co-conspirators registered and used domains designed to look like they were controlled by Sophos, such as sophosfirewallupdate[.]com.

The Impact of Zero-Day Vulnerabilities

Zero-day security vulnerabilities, like the one allegedly developed by Guan, pose a severe threat to organizations that use affected systems. In this case, the 81,000 Sophos firewalls were put at risk, potentially compromising sensitive data and leading to significant financial losses for many companies. Understanding the implications of such attacks is essential for businesses to protect their infrastructure and ensure cybersecurity strategies are robust. The proactive identification and patching of vulnerabilities could prevent similar incidents in the future.

The then-zero-day vulnerability in question is CVE-2020-12271 (CVSS score: 9.8), a severe SQL injection flaw that could be exploited by a malicious actor to achieve remote code execution on susceptible Sophos firewalls.

Rewards for the information about Guan

Separately, the Department of State has announced rewards of up to $10 million for information about Sichuan Silence, Guan, or other individuals who may be participating in cyber attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure entities under the direction of a foreign government.

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