Mike Baker

What we're learning from cybersecurity experts is that the person behind this breach is now claiming they extracted more than 10 petabytes, not terabytes, but petabytes.

Don't ask me what that means of data from China's National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin.

Now, this facility hosts a centralized system supporting more than 6,000 clients across China, including defense contractors, aerospace firms, and advanced research institutions directly tied to Beijing's military and technological developments.

The center is part of a broader network of supercomputing hubs that underpin some of China's most sensitive work.

And just to put that in perspective, because it's easy to lose track of how large this really is, one petabyte, oh, here comes the information, one petabyte equals roughly 1,000 terabytes.

Did you know that?

I had no idea.

So at 10 petabytes, we're talking about a volume of data so massive that only governments or major intelligence services could realistically process it.

To give you a clearer sense of scale, about 10 petabytes could store the entire text collection of the Library of Congress roughly 1,000 times over.

And you're welcome for that really fun bit of cocktail party conversation for the next time you're out at a cocktail party.

According to analysts who reviewed samples posted by the alleged hacker account calling itself Flaming China on Telegram, the contents appear to include documents marked secret in Chinese, along with missile schematics, aerospace research, and simulation data tied to military systems.

Importantly, some of that material has been linked to major state-affiliated organizations, including the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, and the National University of Defense Technology, entities that sit right at the center of Beijing's defense industrial base.

So, you ask yourself, how did this come to light?

That's a good question.

The account Flaming China first began offering previews of the data set for thousands of dollars with full access priced in the hundreds of thousands requested in cryptocurrency.

The account described the archive as containing, quote, research across various fields, including aerospace engineering, military research, bioinformatics, fusion simulation and more, end quote.

But at the same time, it's important to be clear about what we don't know.

This breach has not been independently verified, but multiple cybersecurity experts who have examined portions of the data set, including a researcher who said he spoke directly with the individual claiming responsibility on Telegram, say their initial assessment is that the data appears authentic.

So the next obvious question is, how did the attacker get in?

Well, according to the individual claiming responsibility, access was gained through a compromised virtual private network connected to the supercomputing center.