At a press conference announcing the indictment of four Chinese hackers Monday, US attorney general William Barr spoke out loud what had long been discussed only over drinks at security conferences: some of the biggest hacks of Americans’ private data in the past decade had all been the work of the Chinese government, resulting in a massive, unparalleled espionage advantage.
“For years, we have witnessed China’s voracious appetite for the personal data of Americans, including the theft of personnel records from the US 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,” he told reporters, in what was almost certainly the first time the four attacks had been publicly linked by a government official. While the new indictments from Barr make clear the common perpetrator, the damage China is alleged to have done may take decades for the United States to undo.
China’s hoovering of Americans’ private data has long been one of the biggest open secrets of modern intelligence. Gradually, over years, the Justice Department and US government publicly pointed the finger at China for each breach in turn.
Public notice began with the break-in at the Office of Personnel Management in the spring of 2015, shortly after which then-director of national security James Clapper named the superpower as the “leading suspect.” “You have to kind of salute the Chinese for what they did,” Clapper said ..
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