New details about how China relies on private sector partners to censor the internet spilled into public view via a data leak analyzed by cybersecurity firm SentinelOne.

The leak from Chinese cyber firm TopSec included more than 7,000 lines of work logs and code that SentinelOne analysts used to trace the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party’s coordination with the tech sector.

“We identified work logs and system features that indicate TopSec is likely enabling content moderation for internet censorship purposes, a key strategy used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to monitor and control public opinion on issues that the state deems contentious or antisocial,” said SentinelOne’s Alex Delamotte, Aleksandar Milenkoski and Dakota Cary in the new report. 

SentinelOne reached this conclusion, in part, by studying the leaked data on TopSec’s web content monitoring capabilities believed to be used for a project of China’s Ministry of Public Security, one of Beijing’s top intelligence agencies. TopSec’s tools enabled Chinese authorities to hunt for sensitive words.

“These words are related to political criticism, violence or pornography, and are central to China’s domestic internet censorship efforts aimed at ensuring compliance with government policies,” the SentinelOne researchers said. “Detecting the presence of such words in web content helps prevent the dissemination of information considered inappropriate or harmful by PRC authorities.”

Chinese officials would then use ‘WebSensitive’ alerts generated by TopSec’s monitoring to delete content, restrict access and issue warnings, according to U.S. cybersecurity firm SentinelOne. 

Public-private collaboration in the cybersecurity realm exists internationally. In the U.S., the Biden administration’s efforts to pressure social media companies to diminish the visibility of various content online received widespread scrutiny and criticism.

China’s more forceful efforts are often concealed from public view. SentinelOne found Chinese officials maintained deeper connections with businesses and employed a firmer grasp on their work. China’s policy of military-civil “fusion” mandates that private Chinese companies cooperate with the government on intelligence and security matters.

Regarding how the Chinese firm’s data became available, California-based SentinelOne said in its report on Friday that it did not know the full story behind the leak.

“The nature of how this data was leaked remains unclear, but the materials show that TopSec engineers were documenting their work in a highly granular way that included entire commands used to perform the outlined tasks,” SentinelOne’s researchers said. “Considering the types of information in this leak, organizations should evaluate how their systems and infrastructure engineers are logging work.”

• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.