Microsoft seized a number of websites that were being used by a China-based hacking firm to carry out cyberattacks against organizations in the United States and 28 other countries around the world, the company announced on Monday. In a news release, the technology corporation said that a federal court in Virginia had granted Microsoft’s Dec. 2 request to allow its Digital Crimes Unit to seize the U.S.-based websites, which were being run by a hacker group known as Nickel, APT15, orVixen Panda, and stop them from carrying out such attacks. Microsoft said it has been tracking Nickel since 2016 and monitoring these specific operations since 2019. “We believe these attacks were largely being used for intelligence gathering from government agencies, think tanks, and human rights organizations,” Microsoft’s corporate vice president of customer security and trust, Tom Burt, said. The company is redirecting the websites’ traffic to secure Microsoft servers to “help us protect existing and …