The US Department of Justice has charged five Chinese with hacks targeting more than 100 companies and institutions in the US and abroad, including social media and video game companies, as well as universities and telecoms, officials said on Wednesday.
The five defendants remain fugitives, but prosecutors said that two Malaysian businessmen charged with conspiring with the alleged hackers to profit off the attacks on the video game industry were arrested in Malaysia this week and face extradition proceedings.
The indictments are part of a broader effort by the US to call out cybercrimes by China.
Photo: Reuters
US prosecutors in July accused hackers of working with the Chinese government to target companies developing vaccines for COVID-19, and of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars of intellectual property and trade secrets from companies worldwide.
Though those allegations were tailored to the pandemic, the charges announced on Wednesday — and the range of victims identified — were significantly broader, and involved attacks done both for monetary gain as well as more conventional espionage purposes.
In unsealing three related indictments, officials laid out a wide-ranging hacking scheme, targeting a variety of business sectors and academia, carried out by a China-based group known as APT41.
That group has been tracked over the past year by the firm Mandiant Threat Intelligence, which described the hackers as prolific, and successful at blending criminal and espionage operations.
The department did not directly link the hackers to the Chinese government, but officials said that the hackers were probably serving as proxies for Beijing because some of the targets, including pro-democracy activists and students at a university in Taiwan, were in line with government interests and did not appear to be about scoring a profit.
“A hacker for profit is not going to hack a pro-democracy group,” said Acting US Attorney for the District of Columbia Michael Sherwin.
In addition, one of the five defendants told a colleague that he was very close to the Chinese Ministry of State Security and would be protected “unless something very big happens,” US Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said.
Rosen criticized the Chinese government for what he said was a failure to disrupt hacking crimes and to hold hackers accountable.
“Ideally, I would be thanking Chinese law enforcement authorities for their cooperation in the matter and the five Chinese hackers would now be in custody awaiting trial,” Rosen said. “Unfortunately, the record of recent years tells us that the Chinese Communist Party has a demonstrated history of choosing a different path, that of making China safe for their own cybercriminals, so long as they help with its goals of stealing intellectual property and stifling freedom.”
In Taipei, the Ministry of Education yesterday said that it was looking into the alleged leak of personal information involving a university.
A university was hacked in October last year and the personal information of 67,000 faculty, students and other employees was stolen, the US indictment said.
A Taiwanese energy company was also the victim of ransomware planted by the hackers on May 4, with malware preventing company officials accessing the system while it targeted a payment system in the retail sector, the indictment said.
Additional reporting by Rachel Lin
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
The National Development Council (NDC) yesterday unveiled details of new regulations that ease restrictions on foreigners working or living in Taiwan, as part of a bid to attract skilled workers from abroad. The regulations, which could go into effect in the first quarter of next year, stem from amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法) passed by lawmakers on Aug. 29. Students categorized as “overseas compatriots” would be allowed to stay and work in Taiwan in the two years after their graduation without obtaining additional permits, doing away with the evaluation process that is currently required,
IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
RSS