In September 2017, credit reporting giant Equifax came clean: It had been hacked, and the sensitive personal information of 143 million US citizens had been compromised—a number the company later revised up to 147.9 million. Names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, all gone in an unprecedented heist. On Monday, the Department of Justice identified the alleged culprit: China.
In a sweeping nine-count indictment, the DOJ alleged that four members of China’s People’s Liberation Army were behind the Equifax hack, the culmination of a years-long investigation. In terms of the number of US citizens affected, it’s one of the biggest state-sponsored thefts of personally identifiable information on record. It also further escalates already tense relations with China on multiple fronts.
“This kind of attack on American industry is of a piece with other Chinese illegal acquisitions of sensitive personal data,” US attorney general William Barr said at a press conference announcing the charges. “For years we have witnessed China’s voracious appetite for the personal data of Americans.”
That aggression dates back to a hack of the Office of Personnel Management, revealed in 2015, in which Chinese hackers allegedly stole reams of highly sensitive data relating to government workers, up through the more recently disclosed breaches of the Marriott hotel chain and Anthem health insurance.
Even in that group of impactful attacks, Equifax stands out both for the sheer number of those affected and the type of information that the hackers obtained. While some had previously suspected China’s involvement—that ..
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