It is indeed racist in a minor manner. You see, we all have become adept to such a way of journalism. you ask how?
Well, going by common sense identifying where a hacker is based, if he is not working for the government, is of no use.
Do I care if the hacker, who hacked my gmail account on his accord was Indian or Chinese or even American? No I don't.
But, alternatively, I would only want to know if they are state sponsored. So it is assumed always, not just in terms of hacking, but also other criminal acts, like say terrorism.
Saying " A Muslim Terrorist " is of no use, and create un-necessary delusion and association between the words 'muslim' and 'terrorist'. Which could have been avoided otherwise by saying 'a Terrorist', because the fact is that a terrorist is a terrorist.
But the thing is, we have been hotwired like this for years, we want such unnecessary associations, which we can see through 'most' of the times (but not always, say when we experience something similar nearby).
In simple words you can say, we are used to letting journalist screw with our mind with.
'American Fraudster''Muslim Terrorist' 'Chinese Hacker' 'Japanese Pedophile' 'Hindu Extremist'
Pick a newspaper up some odd day, and you will find a lot of them.
PS: Indeed my reasons to call such articles 'slightly racist' are perhaps different for why the original poster said it was 'racist'.