The Justice Department has charged four members of the Chinese Public Liberation Army with responsibility for what it says is the largest theft of personally identifiable information—and trade secrets—by a state-sponsored actor, following a two-year investigation into the monumental data breach of credit reporting agency Equifax.
“This was a deliberate and sweeping intrusion into the private information of the American people,” said Attorney General William Barr, releasing the indictment. “Today, we hold PLA hackers accountable for their criminal actions, and we remind the Chinese government that we have the capability to remove the Internet’s cloak of anonymity and find the hackers that nation repeatedly deploys against us.
In September 2017, Equifax announced the unauthorized exposure of the data of 147 million Americans—including dates of birth, Social Security numbers, physical addresses and drivers licenses.
Justice officials making the announcement of the charges today noted they are limited in the actions that can be taken against the individuals—Wu Zhiyong, Wang Qian, Xu Ke and Liu Lei, who allegedly perpetrated the attack.
“We can’t put them in jail,” for example, FBI Deputy Director David Bodich said in the press briefing.
But administration officials have pointed to similar allegations in pushing for the removal of Chinese companies such as telecommunications equipment maker Huawei from the country’s critical infrastructure.
“Unfortunately, the Equifax hack fits a disturbing and unacceptable pattern of state-sponsored computer intrusions and thefts by China and its citizens that have targeted personally identifiable information, trade secrets, and other confidential information,” Barr said, noting activities of the group known as justice department attributes equifax chinese military officers
