US charges four Chinese military officers over Equifax hack in 2017

Four members of the Chinese military have been charged with breaking into the networks of the Equifax credit reporting agency and stealing the personal information of tens of millions of Americans, the U.S. Justice Department said Monday, blaming Beijing for one of the largest hacks in history.

Attorney General William Barr said Monday that the scale of the theft in 2017 was “staggering” and the suspects obtained information for nearly 150 million Americans. The attorney general said the hack was one of the largest on record and was a “deliberate and sweeping intrusion into the private information of the American people.”

Speaking at a news conference in Washington, Barr noted that it’s unusual for the US to charge members of another country’s military or intelligence service outside the US, but said the hack “not only caused significant financial damage to Equifax, but invaded the privacy of many millions of Americans, and imposed substantial costs and burdens on them as they have had to take measures to protect against identity theft.”

“This data has economic value and these thefts can feed China’s development of artificial intelligence tools as well as the creation of intelligence targeting packages,” Barr said.

According to court documents, the four are allegedly members of the People’s Liberation Army’s 54th Research Institute, a component of the Chinese military. They spent weeks in the company’s system, breaking into security networks and stealing personal data, the documents said. The nine-count indictment also accuses the group of stealing trade secrets including data compilation and database designs. The whereabouts of the suspects is unknown, and it is highly unlikely that they will stand trial in the US.

Reference:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/us-justice-charges-china-equifax-1.5458110