![]() ![]() ![]() Indeed, what has long worried intelligence professionals as the scope of China’s data ambitions became clear is not the size of each individual theft-even though all four rank among the largest and most serious data breaches ever-it’s the ways that the layers of the data build upon one another. Gradually, over years, the Justice Department and the US government publicly pointed the finger at China for each breach in turn. While the new indictments from Barr make clear the common perpetrator, the damage China is alleged to have done may take decades for the United States to undo.Ĭhina’s hoovering of Americans’ private data has long been one of the biggest open secrets of modern intelligence. “For years, we have witnessed China’s voracious appetite for the personal data of Americans, including the theft of personnel records from the US Office of Personnel Management, the intrusion into Marriott hotels, and Anthem health insurance company, and now the wholesale theft of credit and other information from Equifax,” he told reporters, in what was almost certainly the first time the four attacks had been publicly linked by a government official. At a press conference announcing the indictment of four Chinese hackers Monday, US Attorney General William Barr spoke out loud what had long been discussed only over drinks at security conferences: Some of the biggest hacks of Americans’ private data in the past decade had been the work of the Chinese government, resulting in a massive, unparalleled espionage advantage.
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