A computer keyboard lit by a displayed cyber code is seen in this illustration picture taken on March 1, 2017 WASHINGTON: The US on Monday imposed sanctions on a China-based firm it said was a Ministry of State Security front company, accusing it of serving as a cover for multiple malicious cyber operations and targeting US critical infrastructure.
China state-sponsored malicious cyber actors remain one of the greatest and most persistent threats to US national security, the Treasury said. The cyber security industry has labelled such entities as advanced persistent threats , and the government also uses that acronym. Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology's activity resulted in the surveillance of US and foreign politicians, foreign policy experts, academics, journalists, pro-democracy activists and others, the Treasury said, adding that in 2018 employees of the company carried out an APT31 malicious cyber operation on a Texas-based energy company.