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.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The number of pet cats in Taiwan surpassed that of pet dogs for the first time last year, reaching 1,742,033, a 32.8 percent increase from 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday, citing a survey. By contrast, the number of pet dogs declined slightly by 1.2 percent over the same period to 1,462,528, the ministry said. Despite the shift, households with dogs still slightly outnumber those with cats by 1.2 percent. However, while the number of households with multiple dogs has remained relatively stable, households keeping more than two cats have increased, contributing to the overall rise in the feline population. The trend
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
RSS