Richard Saunders, Phnom Penh
A hacker group calling itself FlamingChina has allegedly stolen an unprecedented cache of sensitive Chinese data — including classified defense materials and missile schematics — from a state-run supercomputing facility in what experts say could be the largest known cyber theft targeting China.
Cybersecurity researchers familiar with the case believe more than 10 petabytes of data were removed from the National Supercomputing Center (NSCC) in Tianjin, which supports thousands of government, research, and defense clients across the country.
Samples of the leaked files, shared by the hacker group on Telegram in early February, reportedly include documents marked “secret” in Chinese and technical renderings of weapons systems. The group claims the trove also contains research spanning aerospace, nuclear fusion, and bioinformatics tied to major state entities such as the Aviation Industry Corporation of China and the National University of Defense Technology.
Cyber experts who examined the samples say the breach may have occurred through a compromised VPN, allowing attackers to deploy a “botnet” that quietly extracted data over roughly six months. “It seems they exploited a simple architectural flaw rather than using advanced tools,” said Dakota Cary, a China-focused analyst at SentinelOne.
The hacker group has offered limited access to parts of the dataset for thousands of dollars, with full data packages priced in the hundreds of thousands, payable in cryptocurrency. CNN, which first reported the claim, could not independently verify the authenticity of the full cache but cited multiple experts who assessed the samples as likely genuine.
The NSCC in Tianjin, home to China’s once world-leading Tianhe-1 supercomputer, was the country’s first national high-performance computing hub when it opened in 2009. Experts warn the breach highlights ongoing weaknesses in Chinese cybersecurity, an area that Beijing itself has acknowledged as a national vulnerability.
China’s 2025 National Security White Paper pledged stronger defenses around data and AI systems, calling for “robust security barriers” and tighter coordination across critical infrastructure.
If confirmed, the Tianjin supercomputer breach would mark a major setback in China’s push to achieve technological self-reliance and could expose valuable information to rival nations’ intelligence agencies.
