The U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned a Chinese national for his alleged involvement in the recent breach of the department’s networks and a cybersecurity in the country for its worked with the state-sponsored threat group behind the high-profile attacks on at least nine U.S. telecoms, including AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

The actions came late week and marked the latest in a series of sanctions levied by the department over the past year against people and businesses connected with China-led cyberattacks on the U.S. government, private companies, and allies.

They also came a day after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in the waning days of the Biden Administration, issued a declaratory ruling requiring communications services providers to ensure their networks are secure under Section 105 of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act and proposed new rules to force them to submit annual certification to the commission that they’ve implemented and updated a cyber-risk management plan.

Actions by both agencies were aimed at blunting the growing cyberthreat China and other foreign adversaries – including Russia, Iran, and North Korea – represent in their targeting critical infrastructure in the United States and other countries. Combating such threats also was a key part of Biden’s last-minute cybersecurity EO issued last week.

“The FCC’s actions today are an important step in securing the nation’s telecommunications infrastructure against the very real threat posed by the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and other threat actors,” former CISA Director Jen Easterly said in a statement.

A Long-time ‘Cyber Actor’

In its actions, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Yin Kecheng, who the agency said has been a “cyber actor” based in Shanghai for more than a decade and is affiliated with China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS). The sanctions

According to Bloomberg News, that attackers allegedly hacked into 400 laptops and desktops to gain access to more than 3,000 unclassified files on. The systems breached included those used by ex-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Deputy Secretary Adewale Adeyemo, and Brad Smith, acting undersecretary.

The department is offering a $10 million reward for information regarding Kecheng’s whereabouts.

OFAC Targets a Chinese Company

OFAC also sanctioned Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology Co., a Chinese cybersecurity company that the office said had “direct involvement in the exploitation of these U.S. telecommunication and internet service provider companies. The MSS has maintained strong ties with multiple computer network exploitation companies, including Sichuan Juxinhe.”

The company was directly involved with Salt Typhoon, a state-sponsored threat group that has been around since 2019 and was behind the ongoing hacks into the telecom companies, stealing metadata of U.S. citizens in what one U.S. senator called the “worst telecom hack in our nation’s history.”

U.S. officials said that threat group had spent months inside the various internet service provider (ISP) networks

The Need for Fast Action

The FCC cited Biden’s latest EO as an impetus behind its declaration, with former Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel saying in a statement that the agency needs to act immediately.

“Today, in light of the vulnerabilities exposed by Salt Typhoon, we need to take action to secure our networks,” Rosenworcel said. “Our existing rules are not modern. It is time we update them to reflect current threats so that we have a fighting chance to ensure that state-sponsored cyberattacks do not succeed. The time to take this action is now. We do not have the luxury of waiting.”

In its annual assessment of national security threats, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in early 2024 wrote that “China remains the most active and persistent cyber threat to U.S. Government, private-sector, and critical infrastructure networks. Beijing’s cyber espionage pursuits and its industry’s export of surveillance, information, and communications technologies increase the threats of aggressive cyber operations against the United States and the suppression of the free flow of information in cyberspace.”