US charges three Chinese nationals with cybercrime offences
29 Nov 2017
US authorities on Monday charged three Chinese nationals with cybercrime offences, accusing them of hacking three companies - Moody's Analytics, Trimble and Siemens - as they attempted to steal gigabytes of sensitive data and trade secrets.
According to the Department of Justice, the men formed part of an organisation, Guangzhou Bo Yu Information Technology Company Limited (Boyusec), which has been linked by cybersecurity researchers to one of the more advanced and active Chinese government-sponsored espionage groups.
The DoJ named the defendants as Wu Yingzhuo, Dong Hao and Xia Lei. IT giant Siemens appeared to be the hardest hit, as the hackers stole 407 GB of data from its energy, technology and transportation businesses, according to the indictment.
The men face charges of hacking into Trimble in 2016 when it was in the process of designing more accurate satellite navigation technology. They stand accused of pilfering at least 275 MB of data, including trade secrets related to that technology. As regards Moody's, according to the DoJ, the financial analytics firm was hacked in 2011, when the accused were said to have compromised company email to forward on a prominent employee's mail to their own accounts.
According to the DoJ, both Wu and Dong were co-founders and shareholders of Boyusec, which noted Lei was an employee. According to the US all were residents of Guangzhou, and were accused of using spear phishing emails to get access to a variety of networks.
Between 2011 and this year the three launched "co-ordinated and unauthorised" cyber attacks, stealing emails, business and commercial information and sensitive employee information.
According to prosecutor Soo C Song, arrest warrants had been issued for the three. She added there was no suggestion that the hacking was state-sponsored.
According to prosecutors, the indictment was filed in September and the Chinese government is aware.
US and China have clashed on the subject of cyber attacks for some years.
