Back to ZRON Espionage-as-a-service!
Back to ZRON: Espionage-as-a-service!
🚀 We acquired more data from the ZRON leak and can deliver deeper insights into the operations and structure of the espionage-as-a-service provider from China just as Trump is about to meet Xi Jinping.
We have initially written about the substantial leak of internal documents from Zhengzhou Zhirong Network Technology, also known as ZRON, a while ago. But now that the WSJ has run a story on it, we were able to secure a larger dataset. With Trump meeting China’s Xi Jinping, it seems a good time to revisit this rather interesting case.
ZRON is a cybersecurity company from China that also seems to be operating as an intelligence collector for the Chinese government and its many intelligence and security institutions. What is rather surprising is that they are not just doing it domestically at scale but also internationally. A trove of internal documents, emails, and messages from foreign embassies, ministries, and personal accounts of state employees bear witness to this fact.
From the outside, the company just looks like another cybersecurity service provider, working in the field of cyber and digital forensics, and supporting law enforcement to fight cybercrime. But their activities go way beyond that and resemble more a ‘full service’ entity for members of China’s security institutions, participating in espionage, online opinion monitoring, shaping data analysis, and reporting.
We had access to more official documentation on their tools, internal developer chats, and meeting notes of sales representatives with government officials from security agencies in China. English translations of internal work and meeting notes from ZRON sales pitches with government clients in China prove that the company is part of China’s digital espionage system.
This new data demonstrates that ZRON has been targeting nationals, as well as foreigners, in sweeping operations of espionage, online monitoring, and cyber attacks. It is not a mere cyber operator, data stealer, or hacker-for-hire. They are a full-service provider for intelligence collection, processing, and analysis.