Washington, PTI: The US Justice Department has charged five Chinese citizens with hacking over a 100 companies and institutions across the world, including Government of India networks, stealing valuable software data and business intelligence.
Deputy US Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen on Wednesday announced three indictments have been unsealed in the matter that collectively charge five Chinese nationals with computer hacking and charge two Malaysian nationals for helping some of those hackers target victims and sell the fruits of their crime.
The Malaysian nationals were arrested on Sunday and the Chinese nationals have been declared fugitive, according to a Justice Department statement.
Rosen heavily criticised the Chinese government. “The Department of Justice has used every tool available to disrupt the illegal computer intrusions and cyberattacks by these Chinese citizens. Regrettably, the Chinese Communist Party has chosen a different path -- of making China safe for cyber-criminals so long as they attack computers outside China and steal intellectual property helpful to China,” the deputy attorney general said.
“In about 2019, the conspirators compromised government of lndia websites, as well as virtual private networks and database servers supporting the Government of India. The conspirators used VPS PROVIDER servers to connect to an Open VPN network owned by the Government of India,” the indictment said.
In the attacks, the conspirators installed 'Cobalt Strike' malware on Indian government-protected computers, it added.
According to the charges, the computer intrusions affected over 100 companies in the United States and abroad.
The victims ranged from software development, computer hardware, telecommunication, social media and video game companies. Non-profit organisations, universities. think-tanks, foreign governments, pro-democracy politicians and activists in Hong Kong were also targeted.
Security researchers have tracked the intrusions using labels “APT41,” “Barium,” “Winnti,” “Wicked Panda,” and “Wicked Spider.” These intrusions facilitated the theft of source code, software code signing certificates, customer account data, and valuable business information, the researchers said.
These intrusions also facilitated the defendants’ other criminal schemes, including ransomware and “crypto-jacking” schemes, the latter refers to the group’s unauthorised use of victim computers to mine cryptocurrency.
