US charges Chinese nationals with hacking
December 20, 2018
Zhu Hua and Zhang Jianguo worked in China to hack into computers and steal intellectual property, US prosecutors charged on Thursday. Their targets included the US Navy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and a range of aviation, space and satellite-technology companies.
US authorities said the two men worked in association with China's Ministry of State Security.
"From at least in or about 2006 up to and including in or about 2018, members of the APT10 Group, including Zhu and Zhang, conducted extensive campaigns of intrusions into computer systems around the world," the Justice Department said.
The Justice Department accused China of breaking a 2015 pact to curb cyber espionage for corporate purposes. It said the hackers had targeted numerous managed service providers (MSPs).
"These defendants allegedly compromised MSP clients in at least a dozen countries," Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said. "It is unacceptable that we continue to uncover cybercrime committed by China against other nations."
"China's goal, simply put, is to replace the US as the world's leading superpower and they're using illegal methods to get there," FBI Director Chris Wray said at a news conference on Thursday.
Other global targets
The US charges of stealing state secrets and technologies and compromising government computers by the Chinese agents were expected to be supported by Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Sweden, according to an unnamed source cited by Reuters.
The British government said in a statement that the hacking was conducted by a group known as APT 10, acting on behalf of China's Ministry of State Security.
The charges follow the October indictment of 10 Chinese nationals over a 5-year scheme to steal engine technology from US and French aerospace firms, the extradition to the US from Belgium of a senior Chinese intelligence official on charges of stealing industry secrets and the December arrest in Canada on the request of the US of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies' chief financial officer.
jm/msh (Reuters, AFP)