The US Justice Department has charged five Chinese citizens with hacking over a 100 companies and institutions in America and abroad, including the Indian government’s networks, and stealing valuable software data and business intelligence.
Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen on Wednesday announced three indictments have been unsealed in the matter that collectively charge five Chinese nationals with computer hacking and charge two Malaysian nationals for helping some of those hackers target victims and sell the fruits of their crime.
The Malaysian nationals were arrested on Sunday and the Chinese nationals have been declared fugitive, according to a Justice Department statement.
“In about 2019, the conspirators compromised Government of lndia websites, as well as virtual private networks and database servers supporting the Government of India. The conspirators used VPS PROVIDER servers to connect to an Open VPN network owned by the Government of India,” the indictment said.
In the attacks, the conspirators installed ‘Cobalt Strike’ malware on Indian government-protected computers, it added.
According to the charges, the computer intrusions affected over 100 companies in the United States and abroad.
The victims ranged from software development, computer hardware, telecommunication, social media and video game companies. Non-profit organisations, universities, think-tanks, foreign governments, pro-democracy politicians and activists in Hong Kong were also targeted.
The Chinese hackers also targeted government computers and networks of Vietnam and United Kingdom. The hackers, however were not successful in compromising the government computer networks in the United Kingdom.
Rosen told reporters that as an additional method of making money, several of the Chinese defendants compromised the networks of video game companies worldwide — a billion-dollar industry — and defrauded them of in-game resources.
“Two of the Chinese defendants stand accused, with two Malaysian defendants, of selling those resources in the black market, through their illicit website,” he said.
Asserting that the Chinese government has the power to help stop crimes like these, Rosen alleged that 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 them.
“The Department of Justice has used every tool available to disrupt the illegal computer intrusions and cyberattacks by these Chinese citizens. Regrettably, the Chinese Communist Party has chosen a different path – of making China safe for cyber-criminals so long as they attack computers outside China and steal intellectual property helpful to China,” the deputy attorney general said.
