The FBI says it has disrupted a China-linked botnet and seized two hacking platforms allegedly used to target NASA, the US Senate, the Department of Energy and other government and critical-network organisations. The action matters because the tools reportedly allowed operators to compromise internet-connected devices at scale and conceal the origins of intrusions, supporting both alleged state-backed espionage and paid criminal activity.

US court warrants seized three domains on Monday, disabling QScan malware and the QTRouter obfuscation network, according to the Justice Department. The FBI attributes them to QTFY, allegedly linked to Chinese firm Nanjing Xinjiuwei and active since at least 2018; alleged victims include the Federal Reserve, Justice Department, NIH and three DOE laboratories, with attacks exploiting Ivanti and Citrix VPN vulnerabilities.