Chinese Hackers' Evolution From Vandals to Strategists

Early Hacktivists Laid the Blueprint for Chinese Hacking Akshaya Asokan (asokan_akshaya) • July 22, 2025

Chinese nation-state hackers share tools. Their techniques overlap. Observers of the Sino hacking scene can trace a web of intersecting contractors and businesses that underpin campaigns such as the hacking of U.S. telecoms by Salt Typhoon.

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There may be an even more fundamental reason why Beijing-linked cyber operations show recurring patterns: a group of 40 hackers who came up together in the "patriotic hacking" scene in the late 1990s and early 2000s, "whose leadership, technical skills and entrepreneurial ventures had a lasting impact on China's cybersecurity ecosystem," posits a study from Eugenio Benincasa, a senior security researcher at ETH Zurich.

Members of the "Red 40" - their ranks today include executives at major Chinese tech firms and founders of ...