China Just Allegedly Suffered The Biggest Hack In The Country's History

A hacker has allegedly obtained a massive trove of data from a Chinese supercomputer, including sensitive documents from the defense department. As reported by CNN, the state-run National Supercomputing Center (NSCC) in Tianjin is believed to have been breached by a group going by FlamingChina, who posted a sample of the stolen data on Telegram on February 6. None of this has been independently verified by journalists or acknowledged by the Chinese government, but cybersecurity experts who have reviewed the samples — which include documents marked Secret and missile schematics — say it appears genuine.

FlamingChina claims the data includes over 10 petabytes (that's 10,000 TB) of "research across various fields including aerospace engineering, military research, bioinformatics, fusion simulation and more" from organizations like the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, and the National University of Defense Technology. Experts say the hacker is offering part of the data for thousands of dollars and full access for hundreds of thousands, all to be paid in cryptocurrency.

Given the kind of information involved, the stolen data will likely interest China's adversaries. As cybersecurity expert Marc Hofer pointed out, only government intelligence agencies are likely to have the resources to sort through that much information to find useful secrets. On the other hand, cybersecurity consultant Dakota Cary questioned the value of the data, speculating that interested governments could already have the intel in question.

Regardless of the consequences, this incident is another example of China's cybersecurity vulnerabilities in both the public and private sectors. FlamingChina claims to have breached the NSCC through a VPN, which has become one of the leading methods for ransomware attacks. It's also far from the first time something like this has happened in the country.

In 2021, up to a billion Chinese citizens had their personal information stolen and posted on the internet, where it stayed for over a year unnoticed. That leak involved over 23 TB of data, far less than the latest one. The Chinese government has, without outright saying it, acknowledged the country's hacking issues. In the 2025 National Security White Paper, it "has continued to strengthen the development of coordinated cybersecurity mechanisms, means, and platforms to ensure the security and reliability of key information infrastructure," making it clear this is an important priority.

Of course, China isn't some innocent victim here. Cyber operations linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have targeted critical infrastructure in the United States and across the world. That's why the US FCC recently banned the sale of routers made in foreign countries. Even if the data revealed by FlamingChina doesn't have national security ramifications, it's a reminder that hackers are always getting more creative and finding new ways and gadgets to infect your computer. It's also a good reminder to turn on advanced protection on your phones to protect sensitive data.