Counterintelligence — 2026-04-08

Hacker Claims 10-Petabyte Breach of China National Supercomputing Center, Offers Military Data for Sale

A hacker operating under the Flaming China group claimed to have exfiltrated over 10 petabytes of sensitive data from China's National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin, a hub serving 6,000+ clients including defense and advanced science agencies. The alleged stolen data includes aerospace engineering research, military technology, bioinformatics, and nuclear fusion simulations. The attacker reportedly gained access through a compromised VPN domain and deployed a botnet to extract data over six months. CNN could not independently verify the claims.

Analysis
If authentic, 10 petabytes from a hub serving Chinese defense agencies would be the largest data exfiltration from a Chinese government system ever reported. The claim remains unverified and the Flaming China group's provenance is unknown. Western intelligence services will be evaluating whether the data is genuine, a honeypot, or a fabrication for sale on criminal markets.
2 sources
  1. A hacker has allegedly breached one of China's supercomputers and is attempting to sell a trove of stolen data - CNN
  2. Hackers Claim Breach of China's Supercomputing Hub, Stealing 10PB of Sensitive Military Data - Vision Times

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UNCLASSIFIED // OPEN SOURCE