- 33-year-old man was accused of having spied for the Chinese government
- FBI claims he’s part of Silke Typhoon Hacking Collective
- If he is convicted he might look at decades in prison
The Italian law enforcement has arrested a 33-year-old Chinese citizen for allegedly espionage on the United States.
Landing in Milan’s Malpensa Airport on a flight from China, Zewi XU was arrested by the local police, and according to the Italian news agency Ansa, it is in demand by the FBI for claiming to have participated in cyber-spyageage operations for China, targeting data on anti-kovide vaccines produced at the University of Texas back in 2020.
Ansa, who refers to “Ministry of the Interior’s Documents,” said XU is accused of being part of Hafnium, a notorious state -sponsored threat actor, also known as Silk Typhoon. With this group, XU was allegedly “targeting thousands of computers around the world” to get information about “different US government policies.”
Typhoons against critical infrastructure
There will be a hearing early next week at Milan’s appeal law to determine if XU will be handed over to the United States.
While his family claims he is IT manager at Shanghai GTA Semi leader, where he develops IT systems and network infrastructure, US authorities accuse XU of thread fraud and worsened identity theft.
If convicted, XU looks at a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison as well as another five years for unauthorized access to protected computers.
Silk Typhoon is one of many “typhoon” groups (Hear Typhon, Silk Typhon and others), all of which seem to be state -sponsored and engaged in various forms of cyber criminal activity.
Critical infrastructure companies, government organizations, telecommunications companies and the like are Typhoons’ most common goals.
In mid -April 2025, in the midst of a serious escalation of hostilities between the United States and China, high -ranking Chinese officials apparently recognized the closed doors that Beijing was involved in a number of cyberattacks on the US critical infrastructure, performed by Volt Typhoon.
This group of infiltrated US critical infrastructure systems for years, including compromising energy, communication, transport and water industries.
Via Bleeping computer
