WASHINGTON — In the latest attempt to “name and shame” China’s government-sponsored cyber theft, the Justice Department announced an indictment Tuesday charging two Chinese nationals — both in China — with hacking governments, dissidents, human rights activists and private companies, including those engaged in COVID-19 vaccine research.
“The hackers stole terabytes of data which comprised a sophisticated and prolific threat to U.S. networks,” a Justice Department statement said.
A grand jury indictment charged Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 33, with conducting a hacking campaign lasting more than 10 years targeting companies in the U.S., Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
The indictment said that the hackers operated both for their own profit and also for the main Chinese intelligence service, the Ministry of State Security. It says they were assisted by an unnamed Chinese intelligence officer known to the grand jury.
Targets included high tech manufacturers, medical device makers civil and industrial engineers, gaming software makers, solar energy companies; pharmaceutical makers, and defense contractors.
Among the 13 U.S. victims were: a California tech and defense company, a Maryland tech and manufacturing company, the DOE’s Hanford site in Washington, a Texas engineering firm, a Virginia defense contractor, a Massachusetts software firm, a California gaming software company, and several U.S. drug makers.
Li Xiaoyu.FBI
Court documents say the hackers “researched vulnerabilities in the networks of biotech and other firms publicly known for work on COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and testing technology, but it does not say they obtained any.
The hackers sought to extort cryptocurrency from one victim, DOJ said, by threatening to release the victim’s stolen source code on the Internet. “More recently, the defendants probed for vulnerabilities in computer networks of companies developing COVID-19 vaccines, testing technology, and treatments.”
