A claim has been raised that China's National Supercomputing Center (NSCC) was hacked, leaking a large trove of classified data, including missile blueprints.
CNN reported on the 8th (local time) that a hacker infiltrated the Tianjin supercomputer, stole more than 10 petabytes (PB; 10,000 TB) of data, and is attempting to sell it. The leaked materials are said to include high-level military information such as defense documents and weapons simulations.
The hacker reportedly accessed the system through a virtual private network (VPN) vulnerability and used a "botnet" to siphon data over several months. Some samples were posted on Telegram, and the full dataset is being sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency.
Cybersecurity experts said, "Given the nature of the materials, they could be authentic," while noting that the data's source and the hacking route have not yet been verified.
If confirmed, the incident is expected to cause ripples as a case exposing security vulnerabilities in China's core technology infrastructure.