securityweek.comarticleUS Seeks Alleged Chinese Hafnium Hacker With $10 Million Reward
The US State Department's Rewards for Justice program is offering up to $10 million for information on Zhang Yu, a Chinese national charged alongside Xu Zewei for the 2021 Hafnium campaign that exploited Microsoft Exchange Server vulnerabilities and for earlier theft of COVID-19 research from US universities and immunologists starting in 2020. Zhang is identified as a director at Shanghai Firetech Information Science and Technology Company allegedly acting for the Shanghai State Security Bureau (part of China's MSS); Xu was extradited from Italy in April 2026 and has appeared in a Houston federal court while Zhang remains at large. Microsoft now tracks the Hafnium activity as Silk Typhoon; the FBI said the campaign compromised more than 12,700 US organizations.
Organisations named here
- Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
- Ministry of State Security
- Rewards for Justice
- Shanghai Firetech Information Science and Technology Company
- Shanghai Powerock Network Co. Ltd.
- Silk Typhoon
Technologies named here
- Microsoft Exchange Server
Techniques named here
- Exploitation of Microsoft Exchange Server vulnerabilities
- Unauthorized access to research data
Threat actors named here
- Hafnium
- Zhang Yu
- Xu Zewei
- Shanghai State Security Bureau
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