US authorities have charged a Chinese businessman with hacking into the computer systems of US companies with large defense contracts, including Boeing, to steal data on military projects, including some of its latest fighter jets, officials said on Friday.
Prosecutors said suspect Su Bin is thought to have worked with two unnamed Chinese hackers to get the data between 2009 and last year, during which he is suspected of attempting to sell some of the information to state-owned Chinese companies.
The three hackers targeted fighter jets such as the F-22 and the F-35, as well as Boeing’s C-17 military cargo aircraft program, according to a criminal complaint filed in US District Court in Los Angeles that was unsealed on Thursday.
An attorney for Su could not be reached for comment.
Su was arrested in Canada on June 28 and remains in custody there, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said in Los Angeles. He has a bail hearing set for Friday.
US Department of Justice spokesman Marc Raimondi said the conspirators are alleged to have accessed the computer networks of US defense contractors without authorization and stolen data on military aircraft and weapons systems.
“We remain deeply concerned about cyber-enabled theft of sensitive information and we have repeatedly made it clear that the US will continue using all the tools our government possesses to strengthen cybersecurity and confront cybercrime,” Raimondi said.
Boeing said in a statement that it cooperated with investigators and will continue to do so to hold accountable “individuals who perpetrate economic espionage or trade secret theft against US companies.”
Accusations of hacking by Beijing and counterclaims of such activity by Washington have strained US-Chinese relations. Chinese hacking has been a major theme of US-China discussions this week in Beijing, though both sides have publicly steered clear of the controversy.
The New York Times on Wednesday reported that Chinese hackers broke into the networks of the US Office of Personnel Management this year with the intention of accessing the files of tens of thousands of federal employees who applied for top-secret security clearances.
Senior officials say hackers gained access to some of the agency’s databases in March before the threat was detected and blocked.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Thursday said both the federal personnel office and the US Department of Homeland Security took steps to mitigate any risk after learning of the situation.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema