The Justice Department has accused two Chinese nationals of a global hacking campaign.
According to the indictment, unsealed Thursday in Manhattan federal court, the two Chinese hackers obtained unauthorized access to computers of at least 45 entities, which included commercial and defense technology companies as well as United States government agencies, across 12 countries.
The hackers, Zhu Hua and Zhang Shilong, were charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions and wire fraud, as well as aggravated identity theft. They remain at large.
The two defendants operated through a hacking group known as as “Advanced Persistent Threat 10” or “APT10.”
The technology thefts began in 2006, and the campaign to steal other intellectual property and data began in 2014. The actions continued up until 2018, the indictment alleges.
Speaking Thursday from the Justice Department headquarters in Washington, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the charges are for attacks on “managed service providers” that provide IT services to other companies.
The hackers are accused of targeting three communications technology companies, three companies “involved in manufacturing advanced electronic systems,” a maritime technology company, an oil and gas company, and at least 25 other technology-related companies.
The hackers also managed to steal personally identifiable information for more than 100,000 U.S. Navy personnel by hacking into more than 40 computers.
Most of the victims of the hacking were not named, though the Justice Department’s charging documents shows that the Department of Energy’s National Laboratory and NASA’s jet propulsion lab were among those targeted.
With the charges, the Trump administration formally accuses China of violating a 2015 espionage deal in which former President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping stood side-by-side and declared that neither the U.S. nor Chinese governments “will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information for commercial advantage.”
Rosenstein said Thursday he wants China to “cease its illegal cyber activities.”
“Today’s charges mark an important step in revealing to the world China’s continued practice of stealing commercial data,” Rosenstein said, adding, “The evidence suggests that China may not intend to abide by its promises.”
More than a dozen allies of the U.S. including the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Japan, and Australia are expected to issue statements supporting the action by the government later Thursday.
Thursday’s charges are the latest in a flurry of actions by the Justice Department and other U.S. government agencies to name, shame, and punish China for cyberattacks.
“China’s goal, simply put, is to replace the U.S. as the world’s largest global superpower,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday.
In October, federal prosecutors unsealed charges against 10 Chinese intelligence officers accusing them of hacking U.S. aviation companies. Days later, a Chinese state-owned firm and its Taiwan partner were charged from steeling from the U.S.’s largest memory-chip maker, Micron Technology Inc.
The Washington Post reported that new sanctions against China are also expected to come Thursday.
