US sanctions Chinese firm for hacking firewalls in ransomware attacks

The U.S. Treasury and DOJ have linked Sichuan Silence and employee Guan Tianfeng to an April 2020 campaign that exploited a Sophos XG zero-day (CVE-2020-12271) to compromise ~81,000 firewalls (including ~23,000 in the U.S.), exfiltrate credentials, and attempt to trigger Ragnarok ransomware via an Asnarök toolkit; the action led to sanctions, an unsealed indictment, and a multi-million-dollar reward offer.