US revises claims on China-linked hacking, saying agencies were targets not necessarily hacked

US officials have corrected earlier statements that suggested several government agencies had been hacked by Chinese hackers, saying instead that the organisations were targets of a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group.In a revised statement on Friday, the Department of Justice said the US Senate, the Federal Reserve, NASA and other organisations were “among the targets of QTFY”, a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group identified by officials on Wednesday during an internet domain seizure operation. An earlier version of the statement had described the government agencies as victims, Reuters reports.Targeted does not always mean breachedThe change is significant because being targeted in a cyberattack does not necessarily mean hackers successfully gained access to a network. The revised wording draws a clearer distinction between attempted attacks and confirmed compromises, an important distinction when describing the scale of a state-linked cyber campaign.A note at the bottom of the revised statement said: “Edits have been made to ensure this press release accurately reflects the government’s allegations in the affidavit in support of the domain seizures.”The Department of Justice said on Friday that it corrected the press release because the August 26 release “described all agencies as victims whereas the government’s affidavit made clear that all were targeted but only some were compromised”.FBI affidavit details targetsAccording to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) affidavit released with the original statement, the hackers had since at least 2018 “targeted” US federal networks, including those of NASA, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Energy, the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health and the US Senate.A footnote in the affidavit said the FBI investigated the targeting of NASA and found that the attempted breach was unsuccessful because the agency had patched the software that was targeted.The affidavit alleges that in September 2024, the hackers carried out “computer intrusions” at three “DOE National Laboratories, NIH, an HHS agency, and a U.S. security device manufacturer”. It referred to the entities as “victims”.The distinction in the affidavit helps explain why officials revised the broader public statement. While some organisations were allegedly compromised, the available information does not support describing every targeted agency as a victim of a successful breach.Some attacks succeededA separate joint cybersecurity advisory issued on Wednesday by the FBI, National Security Agency and US Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force listed successful data thefts from unnamed defence contractors, financial institutions and universities in May 2024.The advisory also listed unsuccessful attempts to access the networks of the US Senate and a US hospital in March 2026.Messages seeking clarification from the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were not immediately returned on Friday.The Chinese Embassy in Washington also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.China rejects US allegationsResponding to Wednesday’s announcement, an embassy spokesperson said the US uses cybersecurity to “smear or discredit China”.The spokesperson said China “opposes the U.S. overstretching the concept of national security and using it as a pretext to impose discriminatory restrictions on Chinese companies and will firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies”.The correction underscores the importance of precise language in cybersecurity disclosures, particularly when allegations involve state-sponsored hackers and sensitive government networks. In this case, US officials have made clear that although all the agencies named were targeted, only some were successfully compromised.

In a newly edited statement, the Department of Justice said on Friday that the U.S. Senate, the Federal Reserve, ‌NASA and others were “among the targets of QTFY,” a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group

In a freshly edited statement, the Justice Department said Friday that the US Senate, the Federal Reserve, NASA, and others were "among the targets of QTFY," a Chinese spy platform.