Ministry of State Security
Civilian intelligence agency of the People's Republic of China
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| September 2024 | Salt Typhoon, an advanced persistent threat affiliated with the MSS, attempted to gain access to the phones of staff from the Kamala Harris 2024 presidential campaign, as well as those of Donald Trump and JD Vance, after gaining access to multiple internet service providers in the U.S. |
| March 2024 | The US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and UK government sanctioned MSS front company Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology and affiliated individuals for placing malware in critical infrastructure and breaching the UK Electoral Commission. |
| March 2024 | The MSS warned that overseas intelligence services were using foreign consulting firms to steal classified information and pose 'major risks to national security'. |
| February 2024 | Files from an MSS contractor called I-Soon were leaked publicly. |
| January 2024 | MSS published a list of '10 conditions' on its WeChat channel, outlining scenarios that could subject individuals to state security scrutiny. |
| 2023 | Zhu Weikang becomes the latest director of the Shanghai State Security Bureau, succeeding Huang Baokun. |
| December 2023 | A joint investigation by Financial Times, Der Spiegel and Le Monde reported an MSS agent from the Zhejiang branch was tasked with discrediting German anthropologist Adrian Zenz. |
| December 2023 | A joint investigation revealed that Belgian former senator Frank Creyelman accepted bribes from MSS for three years to influence European Union discussions. |
| July 2023 | MSS opened an official WeChat account, aiming to popularize counterintelligence among the population. |
| January 2023 | Federal prosecutors dismissed all charges against Baimadajie Angwang. |
| September 2022 | The FBI informed Twitter of at least one MSS agent on its payroll, as reported during Congressional testimony. |
| June 14 2022 | China's embassy in the US informed Bloomberg that Haze Fan had been released on bail, though direct contact with her had not been established. |
| May 2022 | U.S. Department of Justice charged a US citizen for spying under MSS direction on Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, Taiwan independence supporters, and Uyghur and Tibetan activists. |
| March 2022 | U.S. Department of Justice indicted MSS individuals for surveilling and conspiring to harass Chinese American pro-democracy dissidents, including political candidate Xiong Yan and Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu and her father Arthur Liu. |
| 2021 | Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were released after 1,019 days in custody, coinciding with the dropping of charges against Meng Wangzhou. |
| May 28 2021 | A US federal grand jury indicted four PRC citizens for a long-running cyber espionage campaign targeting trade secrets and intellectual property from various sectors between 2012 and 2018. |
| April 2021 | The Ministry of State Security announced new measures to fight alleged infiltration by 'hostile forces', including creating a risk list and restricting staff travel to Five Eyes countries. |
| February 2021 | Britain expelled three MSS agents posing as journalists, as reported by The Daily Telegraph. |
| 2020 | The United States Department of Justice indicted two MSS contractors for hacking Moderna, a biotechnology company developing a COVID-19 vaccine. |
| December 2020 | 10 MSS Operatives of Xinjiang State Security Department were arrested in Kabul, Afghanistan, claiming they were gathering intelligence about al Qaeda, Taliban, and Turkistan Islamic Party. |
| December 2020 | Beijing State Security Bureau detained Haze Fan, a Beijing-based Bloomberg News assistant reporter, on suspicion of endangering national security. |
| September 2020 | Baimadajie Angwang, a New York City Police Officer of Tibetan descent, was arrested for allegedly gathering information on the Tibetan American community for the MSS and attempting to recruit informants. |
| September 2020 | The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released a security advisory regarding hacking by groups affiliated with the MSS. |
| September 2020 | A journalist, a Chinese MSS operative, and her Nepalese informant were arrested in India for providing classified information about Indian army deployments and Ministry of External Affairs. |
| April 2020 | Huang Baokun officially takes office as the director of the Shanghai State Security Bureau. |
| 2019 | According to a European External Action Service report, an estimated 250 MSS spies were operating in Brussels. |
| 2019 | Former Chinese diplomat Yang Hengjun, an Australian citizen, was arrested in Guangzhou and transferred to the Beijing State Security Bureau Detention Center to face espionage charges. |
| April 2019 | Candace Claiborne pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to defraud the United States for passing sensitive information to the MSS. |
| 2018 | The United States Department of Justice indicted two individuals from the cyber-espionage group APT10, which was determined to be under the direction of the Tianjin State Security Bureau of MSS. |
| 2018 | Peking University appointed Qiu Shuiping as its new Party Secretary, highlighting a transition from his previous role in the Beijing State Security Bureau. The hiring announcement was noted for its close alignment with Xi Jinping Thought rhetoric. |
| 2018 | Beijing State Security Bureau arrested Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in an apparent act of hostage diplomacy following the detention of Huawei CFO Meng Wangzhou in Canada. |
| October 2018 | Deputy Minister of State Security, Yanjun Xu, was charged with economic espionage by United States prosecutors. |
| 2017 | Researchers identified Gothic Panda (APT3) as a cyberespionage threat group with nation-state level capabilities, operating on behalf of the Ministry of State Security (MSS). |
| 2017 | MSS officials entered the United States on transit visas and attempted to persuade Chinese dissident Guo Wengui to return to China, which was recorded and reported to the FBI. |
| 2017 | SSSB case workers were implicated in the recruitment of US Department of State employee Candace Claiborne. |
| January 2017 | The FBI arrested Candace Claiborne, a State Department employee who had worked in the American Embassy in Beijing between 2009 and 2012. |
| 2016 | Provincial and local state security bureaus were brought under centralized control. |
| 2016 | Chen Wenqing was nominated Minister of State Security by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, partly as a reward for purging Zhou Yongkang's network. |
| November 2016 | A US Department of Defense report was leaked, revealing that Boyusec, a Guangzhou-based company, was a front for the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS). The report exposed the company's involvement in advanced persistent threat (APT3) activities and collaboration with Huawei to create compromised security products with built-in backdoors for intelligence gathering. |
| 2015 | Dong Weimin takes over as the director of the Shanghai State Security Bureau from Zhu Xiaochao. |
| 2014 | Qiu Shuiping concluded his tenure as Party Secretary of the Beijing State Security Bureau. |
| 2013 | Qiu Shuiping served as the Party Secretary of the Beijing State Security Bureau, overseeing the Communist Party's involvement in the organization. |
| 2012 | An executive assistant to MSS vice minister Lu Zhongwei was found to have been passing information to the CIA, which reportedly infuriated Hu Jintao and led to increased counterintelligence activities. |
| 2012 | Under Xi Jinping's leadership, the MSS gained increased responsibility for cyberespionage, sponsoring advanced persistent threat groups like Double Dragon. |
| February 15 2012 | Wu Zhonghai is succeeded by Zhu Xiaochao as the director of the Shanghai State Security Bureau after an 8-year tenure. |
| 2010 | The Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB) directed US citizen Glenn Duffie Shriver to apply for a position at the National Clandestine Service of the CIA. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles Beijing State Security Bureau, Ministry of State Security (China), Shanghai State Security Bureau & China Information Technology Security Evaluation Center, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.