US DOJ Seizes Chinese Botnet Infrastructure Used in Hacks on NASA and Senate

The US Department of Justice, in coordination with the FBI and international law enforcement partners, has seized control of dozens of command-and-control domains powering a sophisticated state-sponsored Chinese botnet. The malicious network infected end-of-life routers and IoT devices to compromise systems at NASA, the DOJ, and the US Senate.

Federal law enforcement agencies executed a court-authorized operation to sever a major cyber-espionage botnet operated by state-backed Chinese threat actors. The multi-agency seizure targeted domain names and proxy servers utilized to launch stealthy reconnaissance attacks against high-profile US targets.

Investigative filings reveal that the threat group compromised thousands of unpatched consumer routers, firewalls, and network-attached storage devices to construct a covert proxy network. The infrastructure allowed hackers to blend in with legitimate residential web traffic while probing federal networks at NASA, the Justice Department, and legislative offices.

As part of the operation, law enforcement redirected botnet traffic to sinkhole servers, effectively disabling the attackers' ability to issue remote commands or exfiltrate stolen documents. Device owners are being urged to update firmware and replace end-of-life hardware.

Cybersecurity officials warned that nation-state actors continue to target vulnerable edge networking hardware as a primary entry point into enterprise and government IT environments. Strong network hygiene and automated patch management remain vital defenses.