Hackers created a fake news website to harvest data from Australian government officials, journalists and others, according to a top US security company.
It was "very certain," according to Proofpoint, that the hackers were working for the Chinese government.
Vice-president of threat research and detection at Proofpoint Sherrod DeGrippo stated, "We take attribution very seriously.
"We explicitly avoid publishing attribution unless we are confident in it.
"Essentially, the fact that the US Department of Justice concurs with the attribution and data that
we have made public accounts for a significant portion of our attribution capacity.
The DoJ indictment, which names these individuals and particularly calls out the Proofpoint name identifier
"Leviathan," is the main basis for our high level of confidence in this particular attribution.