{"id":21792,"date":"2020-02-10T10:44:06","date_gmt":"2020-02-10T18:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=21792"},"modified":"2020-02-10T10:44:06","modified_gmt":"2020-02-10T18:44:06","slug":"attorney-general-william-p-barr-announces-indictment-of-four-members-of-chinas-military-for-hacking-into-equifax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=21792","title":{"rendered":"Attorney General William P. Barr Announces Indictment of Four Members of China\u2019s Military for Hacking into Equifax"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Washington<\/span>,\u00a0DC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

~<\/span><\/p>\n

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Monday, February 10, 2020<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Remarks as Prepared for Delivery<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Good morning.\u00a0 I am here to announce the indictment of Chinese military hackers \u2013 specifically, four members of the Chinese People\u2019s Liberation Army \u2013 for breaking into the computer systems of the credit-reporting agency Equifax, and for stealing the sensitive personal information of nearly half of all American citizens, and also Equifax\u2019s hard-earned intellectual property.<\/p>\n

This was one of the largest data breaches in history.\u00a0 It came to light in the summer of 2017, when Equifax announced the theft.\u00a0 The scale of the theft was staggering.\u00a0 As alleged in the indictment, the hackers obtained the names, birth dates, and social security numbers of nearly 150 million Americans, and the driver\u2019s license numbers of at least 10 million Americans.\u00a0 This theft 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.<\/p>\n

As described in the indictment, the hackers broke into Equifax\u2019s network through a vulnerability in the company\u2019s dispute resolution website.\u00a0 Once in the network, the hackers spent weeks conducting reconnaissance, uploading malicious software, and stealing login credentials, all to set the stage to steal vast amounts of data from Equifax\u2019s systems.\u00a0 While doing this, the hackers also stole Equifax\u2019s trade secrets, embodied by the compiled data and complex database designs used to store the personal information.\u00a0 Those trade secrets were the product of decades of investment and hard work by the company.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s announcement comes after two years of investigation.\u00a0 According to the nine-count indictment handed down by a grand jury in Atlanta, four members of the Chinese People\u2019s Liberation Army, or PLA \u2013 Wang Qian, Wu Zhiyong, Xu Ke, and Liu Lei \u2013 are alleged to have conspired to hack Equifax\u2019s computer systems and commit economic espionage.\u00a0 In doing so, they are alleged to have damaged Equifax\u2019s computer systems and to have committed wire fraud.<\/p>\n

This kind of attack on American industry is of a piece with other Chinese illegal acquisitions of sensitive personal data.\u00a0 For years, we have witnessed China\u2019s voracious appetite for the personal data of Americans, including the theft of personnel records from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the intrusion into Marriott hotels, and Anthem health insurance company, and now the wholesale theft of credit and other information from Equifax.\u00a0 This data has economic value, and these thefts can feed China\u2019s development of artificial intelligence tools as well as the creation of intelligence targeting packages.<\/p>\n

In addition to thefts of sensitive personal data, our cases reveal a pattern of state-sponsored computer intrusions and thefts by China targeting trade secrets and confidential business information: hacks by a group known as APT 10, which worked in association with the Chinese Ministry of State Security, or MSS, to target managed service providers and their clients worldwide across industries; hacks by MSS intelligence officers who sought to steal intellectual property related to turbofan engines by using both insiders and computer operations, and; hacks by PLA officers who targeted victims in the nuclear power, metals, and solar products industries for the economic benefit of Chinese companies.\u00a0 Indeed, about 80 percent of our economic espionage prosecutions have implicated the Chinese government, and about 60 percent of all trade secret theft cases in recent years involved some connection to China.<\/p>\n

We do not normally bring criminal charges against the members of another country\u2019s military or intelligence services outside the United States.\u00a0 In general, traditional military and intelligence activity is a separate sphere of conduct that ought not be subject to domestic criminal law.\u00a0 There are exceptions to this rule, of course.\u00a0 For instance, we have brought charges against intelligence officers operating undercover in the United States.\u00a0 And more recently, we have charged state-sponsored actors for computer intrusions into the United States for the purpose of intellectual property theft for the use of their private sector, bank robbery, and interfering with our democratic elections.\u00a0 Like those cases, the deliberate, indiscriminate theft of vast amounts of sensitive personal data of civilians, as occurred here, cannot be countenanced.<\/p>\n

The United States, like other nations, has gathered intelligence throughout its history to ensure that national security and foreign policy decisionmakers have access to timely, accurate, and insightful information.\u00a0 But we collect information only for legitimate national security purposes; we do not indiscriminately violate the privacy of ordinary civilians.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s indictment would not have been possible without the hard work of a dedicated team of FBI agents and federal prosecutors in Atlanta and here in Washington, D.C.\u00a0 In addition, the Department\u2019s Office of International Affairs provided valuable assistance in working with other nations to secure evidence located overseas.\u00a0 Notably, Equifax cooperation throughout the investigation was critical to our development of the case.<\/p>\n

I would like to now invite U.S. Attorney BJay Pak to provide remarks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington,\u00a0DC ~ Monday, February 10, 2020...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21793,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21792\/revisions\/21793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}