FBI Director James Comey compared Chinese hackers to a “drunk burglar” who steals with reckless abandon, even as they cost the US economy billions of US dollars every year.
In an interview broadcast on Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes, Comey said Chinese hackers target the intellectual property of US companies in China every day.
“I liken them a bit to a drunk burglar. They’re kicking in the front door, knocking over the vase, while they’re walking out with your television set. They’re just prolific. Their strategy seems to be: ‘We’ll just be everywhere all the time. And there’s no way they can stop us,’” Comey said.
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The US Department of Justice earlier this year announced a 31-count indictment against Chinese hackers accused of breaking into computer networks at steel companies and the manufacturers of solar and nuclear technology, with the goal of gaining a competitive advantage. China has rejected the allegations.
“There are two kinds of big companies in the United States,” Comey said. “There are those who’ve been hacked by the Chinese, and those who don’t know they’ve been hacked by the Chinese.”
Annual losses from cyberattacks launched from China were “impossible to count,” Comey said, but measured in “billions.”
Asked which countries were targeting the US, Comey said: “I don’t want to give you a complete list. But... I can tell you [that the] top of the list is the Chinese.”
Comey also discussed the US fight against terrorism. He described the terrorist networks within Syria as a sophisticated “metastasis” of al-Qaeda.
He said the Khorasan Group, an alleged al-Qaeda cell in Syria that was targeted in military strikes last month, was “working and, you know, may still be working on an effort to attack the United States or our allies, and looking to do it very, very soon.”
“Given our visibility, we know they’re serious people, bent on destruction,” he said.
The small group of suspected al-Qaeda veterans from Afghanistan and Pakistan was targeted in strikes near Aleppo, Syria, last month.
Senior US officials have not said whether the group’s alleged plots have been disrupted.
Comey said the US believes there are about a dozen US citizens fighting alongside extremist groups in Syria.
He said that if someone has fought alongside the Islamic State group and tries to come back to the US, “We will track them very carefully.”
He said people in the US should have confidence in changes made since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, saying the government is “better organized, [with] better systems, better equipment, smarter deployment. We’re better in every way that you’d want us to be since 9/11.”
Additional reporting by AFP
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