The US on Tuesday accused two Chinese hackers of working for Beijing to steal, or try to steal, terabytes of data, including COVID-19 vaccine research, from Western companies in 11 nations.
The US Department of Justice released an indictment against the individuals, whom it identified as Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi.
It said that the two men were assisted by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, and that defense contractors and weapons systems were hacked along with medical research.
“Li and Dong, former classmates at an electrical-engineering college in Chengdu, China, used their technical training to hack the computer networks of a wide variety of victims,” the indictment said.
“The defendants stole hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of trade secrets, intellectual property, and other valuable business information,” it said.
Theft of intellectual property has long been a source of strain between the two nations.
“China is providing a safe haven” for hackers working for personal profit and the state’s interests, US Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said at a news conference in Washington.
The cyberattacks were part of Beijing’s “rob, replicate and replace strategy to technological development,” he said.
Demers declined to specify whether the hackers had been successful in stealing COVID-19 vaccine research, but said that the US is concerned that attacks against companies working on vaccines could slow down their efforts, or result in data being manipulated.
The US knows the identity of Chinese officials who aided the hackers, but declined to indict them at this time, Demers said.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) rejected the US hacking accusations at a news conference in Beijing yesterday.
“The Chinese government is a staunch supporter and champion of cybersafety,” Wang said.
“We’ve been cracking down on all forms of cyberattacks and cybercrimes. We demand the US side immediately stop discrediting China on the issue of cybersecurity,” he said.
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