PANews reported on May 19 that according to Guangzhou Daily, the Shangcheng District People's Court of Hangzhou recently made a first-instance judgment on a case of extortion using a Trojan virus. The four defendants were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from three years to seven years and six months for the crimes of extortion and infringement of citizens' personal information.

The main culprit of the gang, Qi Moumou and others, were originally network security engineers, familiar with system vulnerabilities, and had engaged in illegal crawling of citizens' personal information for profit. At the end of 2023, they turned to extortion attacks, using Trojan viruses to encrypt corporate files and demand digital cryptocurrency ransoms. After a "time-honored" medical institution in Hangzhou was attacked, 89 servers were paralyzed, and the electronic medical records and registration systems could not operate. They were eventually forced to pay a ransom to resume business. The police investigation found that the gang also attacked two other companies and extorted a total of more than 330,000 yuan worth of cryptocurrency. The gang has a strong sense of anti-detection, uses overseas springboard servers to hide their whereabouts, and uses AI to optimize virus codes. In December 2023, the police arrested four people in Inner Mongolia, Beijing and other places. The court held that their actions seriously undermined network security and finally made a judgment in accordance with the law.