- “FlamingChina” claims 10 PB of data was stolen from supercomputer
- The supercomputer has been used by numerous military and civilian entities
- Data samples show simulations of planes, missiles and bombs
An individual or group calling itself “FlamingChina” claims to have stolen more than 10 petabytes of highly sensitive military information from China’s National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin.
The flaw remains unverified, but samples posted by the hacker show “research in various fields, including aerospace engineering, military research, bioinformatics, fusion simulation and more,” the group says.
The hacker is now offering a potentially record-breaking data set for sale with a price tag of several hundred thousand dollars in cryptocurrency.
Article continues below
What did the stolen data contain?
FlamingChina claims the stolen data includes highly secret information from “major organizations” such as the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) and the National University of Defense Technology of China.
Analysis carried out by experts and shared by CNN suggests that the data may be authentic and contains schematics and renderings of military equipment, including aircraft, missiles and bombs.
FlamingChina released the data for sale on February 6, 2026, claiming that the extraction took place over several months.
The breach, if confirmed, could help explain why several high-level experts in the fields of aviation, nuclear weapons, radar and missile systems were apparently removed from the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) site without explanation at one point in March this year.
Talk to CNNDakota Cary, a consultant with cybersecurity firm SentinelOne, said the stolen samples are “exactly what I would expect from the supercomputing center.”
“You would use supercomputing centers for large computing tasks. The range of samples that vendors offer says a lot about the breadth of that supercomputing center’s customer base,” Cary continued.
Transporting 10 petabytes represents a huge amount of data, as there are 1,024 terabytes in a petabyte, meaning the total breach is approximately 10,240 terabytes, or well over 10 million gigabytes.
Cybersecurity researcher and author of the blog NetAskari, Marc Hofer, claimed to have spoken to someone claiming to be FlamingChina via Telegram. The hacker said he used a compromised VPN domain to access the Tianjin supercomputer.
They claimed the 10 petabytes of data were slowly extracted over a six-month period using a botnet. The botnet regularly extracted and downloaded data from multiple supercomputer servers at the same time. The constant stream of small data packets was likely intended to prevent any defense mechanism from detecting a large stream of outgoing data.
FlamingChina likely managed to pull off the heist because it relied less on malware and more on vulnerabilities in the supercomputer architecture.
What is the National Supercomputer Center?
The National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin was opened in 2009 and serves more than 6,000 entities with the high-speed computing power needed for complex simulations. The supercomputer is used by entities in the research, industry and defense sectors. Supercomputers are often used for aviation modeling, nuclear detonation simulations, and even AI training.
Many military, defense and intelligence projects likely relied on the National Supercomputer Center for modeling and simulations, making the dataset a potentially attractive asset to foreign intelligence agencies – even with a hefty price tag.
The Tianjin Economic Development Zone website describes the supercomputer as “an indispensable technology support for cutting-edge S&T innovation and industry modernization” that “serves increasingly diverse customers ranging from research institutes, universities, government agencies to enterprises and beyond.”
The best antivirus for every budget
Follow TechRadar on Google News And add us as your favorite source to get our news, reviews and expert opinions in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!
And of course you can too follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form and receive regular updates from us on WhatsApp Also.
