FBI Thwarts Second Chinese Hacker Group, Flax Typhoon

JAKARTA The FBI, the United States law enforcement agency, managed to thwart a large Chinese hacker group dubbed the "Flax Typhoon." In the operation, the FBI managed to retake thousands of devices that had been compromised by the group. This announcement was made directly by the FBI Director, Christopher Wray, at a cybersecurity conference in Washington on Wednesday, September 18, 2024.

Flax Typhoon is identified as a group run by a Chinese company called the Integrity Technology Group. The company pretends to operate as an information technology company (IT) but actually collects intelligence and reconnaissance on behalf of the Chinese government's security agency.

According to a statement issued by cyber authorities from the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Flax Typhoon has successfully hacked more than 250,000 devices worldwide by June 2024. The group targets critical infrastructure, including companies, media, universities, and government agencies.

Beijing's Reaction And Botnet's Accusations

Despite these allegations seriously, the Chinese Embassy in Washington immediately denied this. They accused US authorities of "making baseless conclusions" and asserted that China has always been fighting all forms of cyberattacks. In a statement, China stated that it did not support this kind of activity and rejected allegations of government involvement in the operation.

To disguise its operations, Flax Typhoon uses a method called "botnet," namely a network of devices that have been hijacked such as cameras and digital storage devices, to deliver malicious traffic undetected. The FBI took over the botnet infrastructure, although the hacker group launched a counter-attack before finally giving up and leaving operations.

FBI Ready To Face Longer Fight

According to Wray's Director, the failure of the Flax Typhoon group is part of the FBI's ongoing efforts to break China's botnet network. He also mentioned that previously the FBI had succeeded in identifying and handling other hacker groups also linked to the Chinese government, namely Volt Typhoon.

Wray reminded that although this action was successful, "this is just one round in a much longer fight." The FBI is committed to continuing to counter cyber threats coming from China, especially those targeting vital infrastructure and strategic institutions in the United States.

This operation marks a significant step in the FBI's efforts to suppress state-backed cyberattacks. Both groups, Flax Typhoon and Volt Typhoon, are considered a major threat to US cybersecurity, particularly in terms of maintaining critical infrastructure security.