Justice Department Rewrites Its China Hacking Announcement to Say the Senate, NASA and the Fed Were Targets, Not Victims

The Justice Department on Aug. 28, 2026 edited a press release it had issued two days earlier about a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group it calls QTFY. The original Aug. 26 release described the Senate, the Federal Reserve, NASA and other agencies as among the hackers' victims; the revised version calls them "among the targets." A note appended to the release says the edits were made so it "accurately reflects the government's allegations in the affidavit in support of the domain seizures." The department said the earlier version "described all agencies as victims whereas the government's affidavit made clear that all were targeted but only some were compromised."

The distinction narrows the scope of confirmed breaches materially. An FBI affidavit footnote said the attempted breach of NASA failed because the agency had patched the targeted software, and a joint advisory noted unsuccessful attempts against the Senate and a hospital in March 2026. Announcements of foreign intrusions carry weight in Congress and abroad, and the gap between the release and the sworn affidavit was closed only after scrutiny.

The affidavit does allege successful intrusions at three Energy Department national laboratories and the National Institutes of Health.