WASHINGTON — Hackers associated with China’s main intelligence service had been charged with infiltrating and stealing intelligence, extorting their victims and hijacking their networks in the U.S, said the Department of Justice.
The United States government presented three indictments unsealed through their allegations that China has attempted to unlawfully advance its economy and utilize the hackers to commit cyber-attacks that worked in conjunction with some Malaysian nationals who attempted to steal and launder money through the lucrative video game industry Chinese business thrive on.
“The Chinese government has made a deliberate choice to allow its citizens to commit computer intrusions and attacks around the world because these actors will also help the P.R.C.,” said Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen as he pointed out to People’s Republic of China in a news conference when stating his charges..
“It’s a free license to hack and steal across the globe.” said The acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Michael R. Sherwin.
Targeting non-profit, government agencies, universities, technology companies as well as social media, hackers Qian Chuan, Fu Qiang, Tan Dailin , Zhang Haoran and Jiang Lizhi were said to have attacked them using a so-called supply chain attack that allowed them to break into software companies and embedding malicious code in their commodities.
This had been the first publicly revealed supply chain attack of Chinese national by a U.S Indictment, described by the Justice Department.
The code the hackers used was riding on the software companies to install their product and therefore giving them access to activate the code and let the hackers into the software files of the companies.
“They compromised video game distributors to proliferate malware, which could then be used for follow-up operations,” the senior director of threat intelligence at the cybersecurity company Mandiant, John Hultquist said.
“The United States government is starting to turn the tide on Chinese intrusion operations on Western companies and targets,” CrowdStrike’s head of threat intelligence, Adam Meyers said.
Microsoft, Verizon, The Alphabet (parent company of Google) and Facebook all helped the government in its hacking investigation.
“APT41”, the group of the caught hackers, were allowed given permission by the Chinese government as FBI sources cited that China did little to nothing to stop or strain hacking activities among it’s Chinese citizens.
