US arrests Silk Typhoon hacker accused of stealing Covid research and mass email hacking

• 33-year-old man was accused of spying for the Chinese government
• FBI alleges he is part of the Silk Typhoon hacking collective
• If convicted, he might be looking at decades in jail

Italian law enforcement has arrested a 33-year-old Chinese national for allegedly spying on the United States.

Landing at Milan’s Malpensa airport on a flight from China, Zewei Xu was apprehended by local police, and according to Italian news agency ANSA, is wanted by the FBI for allegedly participating in cyber-espionage operations for China, targeting data surrounding anti-COVID vaccines that were being produced at the University of Texas back in 2020.

Citing “interior ministry documents”, ANSA said Xu is accused of being part of Hafnium, an infamous state-sponsored threat actor also known as Silk Typhoon. With this group, Xu allegedly “targeted thousands of computers around the world” to get information on “various US government policies.”