Chinese hackers impersonate US official to gather intelligence on AI policy
Campaign targeted fewer than 10 individuals at various organizations, Proofpoint says
Chinese hackers have waged a new impersonation campaign to target AI experts with malicious intentions of stealing emails from them at think tanks, universities and other organisations.
The disclosure came from the cybersecurity company Proofpoint which in a detailed report found out that the Chinese hackers impersonated a former US official to steal all this relevant information.
As reported by CNN, The operatives posed as a senior Anthropic employee and former White House tech official Lynne Parker who previously worked as the principal deputy director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, to distribute malware and attempt credential theft.
The targeted emails were all about proposing AI-based initiatives and collaboration prior to taking targets to the password-stealing websites.
The deception campaign aimed to gain critical insights into American AI developments, governance, and policy as the US-China race for AI supremacy intensified.
“We are confident that [the hacking group] is a Chinese government-aligned threat actor based on targeting consistently in line with Chinese government interests, observed infrastructure and technical artifacts, and corroboration from industry partners,” Proofpoint staff researcher Mark Kelly told CNN in an email.
Proofpoint did not disclose the names of hackers’ targets but the report indicated that the list included those experts working on AI regulation, national AI strategy and exports control.
However, Reuters independently identified that one of targets was Alex Engler who now heads the Penn Center on Media, Technology and Democracy.
Parker, who confirmed that two people received these suspicious messages in early July, noted that the targeting aligns with broader geopolitical dynamics.
"The United States and China are in a competition around AI. Trying to get people in the AI policy space to reveal information about their AI policy plans, if that indeed was what the objective was, it's not surprising,” Parker said.
As per the report, this nefarious activity is not a one-time incident; in fact since 2025 these alleged Chinese hackers, called TA419,” regularly try to steal passwords from people working for US and Japanese organisations, military, defence companies and law firms.
The Chinese embassy did not respond to these hacking reports.
The hacking attempt report came to the surface after one week of the Trump-Xi summit held in Washington and both sides announced plans to open an AI communication channel to report AI incidents.
