Chinese cybersecurity firm 360 Security Technology has helped Beijing uncover 54 “overseas, state-level” hacking groups, including operatives from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA), according to its founder and chairman Zhou Hongyi.
Speaking at the firm’s Internet Security and AI Conference on Wednesday, Zhou claimed that its discovery of CIA and NSA hacking programmes targeting China, which had existed for over a decade, was a key reason for his company being sanctioned by Washington. Better known as Qihoo 360, the company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange from 2011 to 2016.
“We are being sanctioned by the US because Americans … see 360 as a threat,” Zhou said.
Zhou, who had a stint as chief executive of Yahoo! China from 2004 to 2005, has portrayed himself as the patriotic face of China’s internet. After the global technology outage last month triggered by US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, Zhou claimed his company’s products were “more reliable, stable, comprehensive and intelligent” than foreign ones.
When citing the firm’s investment in contributing to the country’s cybersecurity, Zhou thanked Chinese consumers for bearing with the pop-up ads on its services, as watching them is actually contributing to China’s “national security”.
China’s foreign ministry did not comment directly on Zhou’s latest comments, but cited an earlier 360 report saying the country was a “victim” in the hacking cases.
The US Commerce Department added 360 to the so-called Entity List in 2020, accusing them of helping China spy on its minority Muslim Uygur population in Xinjiang. In 2022, the US defence department added it to a list of Chinese firms deemed to have ties with the Chinese military.
In 2020, 360 published a report saying CIA hackers spent more than a decade breaking into the Chinese aviation and energy sectors, scientific research organisations, internet companies and government agencies. It also helped China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Centre in identifying NSA operatives and discovering spyware targeting a Chinese university in 2023.
In his remarks on Wednesday, Zhou said had to cut short a US trip in March 2020, while attending an IT security conference, citing unspecified “risks”. Two months later the sanctions were slapped on his company.
However, in April this year Zhou attended in person the Harvard University China Forum in the US without incident.
Separately, the cybersecurity firm is also trying to get a foothold in artificial intelligence (AI). Zhou, 53, said he will make 360’s industry-specific large language model (LLM) free to use amid an escalating price war.
The Beijing-based company will make its security industry AI model free for individual users as well as small and medium sized enterprises, to “bring LLM down from the pedestal”, Zhou said.
The security-specific AI model is one of several LLMs launched by the company, which also includes the general-purpose 360 Zhinao model. LLMs are the technology underpinning generative AI applications like ChatGPT.
Zhou said AI has brought new challenges to cybersecurity, as it is bound to become a tool for building attack software, writing phishing emails and setting up fake websites.
“We need to use AI to address the security challenges posed by AI development … The traditional security approaches will no longer work because AI is smarter than our traditional software,” Zhou said.
The move to make its industry-specific LLM free of charge comes amid a price war in China’s generative AI race, in which tech giants including ByteDance, Baidu, Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings have drastically slashed prices on their LLM services. Alibaba owns the Post.
