Experts analyzing a massive data leak this week have revealed that a Chinese tech security firm successfully breached foreign governments, infiltrated social media accounts, and hacked personal computers.

According to cybersecurity firms SentinelLabs and Malwarebytes, a trove of documents from I-Soon, a private contractor competing for Chinese government contracts, shows that its hackers compromised more than a dozen governments.

Researchers from SentinelLabs reported that I-Soon also breached "democracy organizations" in China's semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong, as well as universities and the NATO military alliance. The leaked data, whose contents AFP could not immediately identify, was posted last week on the online software repository GitHub by an unknown individual.

SentinelLabs analysts stated that "the leak provides some of the most concrete details seen publicly to date, revealing the maturing nature of China's cyber espionage ecosystem."

Additionally, Malwarebytes reported in a separate post that I-Soon successfully breached government offices in India, Thailand, Vietnam, and South Korea, among others.

Analysts noted that I-Soon's website was inaccessible, but an internet archive snapshot indicated its base in Shanghai, with subsidiaries and offices in Beijing, Sichuan, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang.

According to analysts, the services offered to potential clients included breaking into an individual's account on the social media platform X, monitoring their activity, reading their private messages, and sending posts.

The leaked documents outlined the firm's capability for its hackers to remotely access and take control of an individual's computer, enabling them to execute commands and monitor keystrokes.

Additionally, the services offered included methods for breaching Apple's iPhone and other smartphone operating systems, as well as the development of custom hardware, such as a power bank designed to extract data from a device and transmit it to hackers.

The leaked documents exposed I-Soon's involvement in bidding for contracts in China's Xinjiang region, where Beijing faces accusations of detaining hundreds of thousands of primarily Muslim individuals under the guise of combating extremism, a campaign labeled as genocide by the United States.

SentinelLabs analysts highlighted that the company listed previous hacking activities targeting terrorism-related entities, including counterterrorism centres in Pakistan and Afghanistan, as evidence of their capabilities in such tasks.

Moreover, the leaked data disclosed the potential earnings for hackers, with fees reaching $55,000 for breaching a government ministry in Vietnam.

The FBI has asserted that China maintains the most extensive hacking program among all nations. In response, Beijing has dismissed these allegations as "groundless" and has pointed to the United States' own history of cyber espionage.

Image source: ToI