Chinese Hackers Charged With “Massive Theft” From NASA, Navy And Others

Two Chinese hackers have been charged by the Department of Justice on the accusation of cybercrimes regarding the serious threat they cause to the national security.

The two Chinese nationals, who according to the Department of Justice was parts of a global hacking group sponsored by the government, known as the APT10. These two hackers are accused of information theft from 45 US government agencies and technologies firm. NASA, the US Department of Energy and the Navy are among the affected organizations.

In a press conference on Thursday, Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General said that:

Groups like APT10 exploit malware to gain access to computers' networks and steal the data over time, according to Rosenstein.

According to some officials, hundreds of gigabytes of confidential business information as well as intellectual property and 1000 US Navy members’ personally identifiable information were stolen. The affected companies belong to fields including health care, oil and gas exploration, consumer electronics and telecommunications.

In a press conference, the Southern District of New York’s attorney, Geoffrey Berman, evaluated the theft as “shocking and outrageous”.

The charges were made after the news from The New York Times broke out last week. According to the Times, China’s Ministry of State Security’s hackers were the culprits in the Marriot hotel chain attack which affected 500 million people. In November, in a post from Reuters, it stated that a National Security Agency official has violated an agreement from 2015, in which China is not allowed to cyberspy on the US.

In the press conference, Rosenstein also mentioned that in the last seven years, over 90% of the DOJ’s cases of economic spy have related to China. Moreover, two-thirds of cases of trade secrets theft also have involved China.

Each of the two hackers, Zhang Shilong and Zhuhua, face charges of committing computer intrusions (5-sentence maximum), wire fraud (20-year sentence maximum), and aggravated identity theft (mandatory 2-year sentence).

As FBI Director, Christopher Wray said: