The United States charged two Chinese men accused of hacking computer systems of government agencies and companies in a dozens of countries, actions of a wide-reaching state-backed campaign of a cyber-espionage.
The US justice department said the US navy and NASA were among those who were allegedly targeted by Chinese hackers in a program, also included banks, healthcare providers and telecom companies in twelve companies.
After the charges imposed by the US, it drew Beijing’s attention accusing Washington of “fabricating facts”.
Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein said China has repeatedly broken 2015 pledge of Chinese President Xi Jinping over to standstill cyber-attacks on the US companies and also commercial infrastructure.
Rosenstein said, “It is unacceptable that we continue to uncover cyber-crime committed by China against other nations.” He said, “We want China to cease its illegal cyber activities and honor its commitment to the international community.”
He further said, “But the evidence suggests that China may not intend to live up to its promises.”
Britain – the US ally, joined the US over the charges with foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt saying that Beijing always continued to hack country’s computer system for economic and commercial motives.
Hunt said, “These activities must stop. They go against the commitments made to the UK in 2015, and, as part of the G20, not to conduct or support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property or trade secrets.”
The US officials said Chinese hackers had targeted the managed service providers (MSPs), a firm that hold several companies information and also help to manage their all information technology systems, which could give access to all computer networks of many dozens of computers to hackers.
The victims of the US included several government agencies – Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre, the US navy, and the department of energy’s Lawrence Berkeley national laboratory, from where more than of 100,000 personnel details were hatched and stolen.
Lashing out the US, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said, “The United States is fabricating facts, creating something from nothing, and unwarrantedly denouncing China on cybersecurity issues.”
Beijing said it had now lodged an official protest against the US claims and charges and also warned the US to drop prosecution in order “to avoid serious damage to the relations between the two countries”.
According to news reports, the justice department said the two alleged Chinese hackers – Zhang Shilong and Zhu Hua, worked for APT10 group, which is backed by the Chinese ministry of state security, claim by London, Washington and other allies.
APT10 used to hack and stole “hundreds of gigabytes” of very sensitive information and data from its targets, seizing their systems through hacked MSPs.
FBI’s counterintelligence division head Bill Priestap, last week, told US congress, “The Chinese government is attempting to acquire or steal not only the plans and intentions of the United States government but also the ideas and innovations of the very people that make our economy so incredibly successful.”