Four Members of the Chinese Military Charged With Equifax Hack

Back in 2017, a credit agency Equifax became a victim of a massive hacking attack which resulted in a theft of personal data belonging to around 150 million US citizens. Now, the authorities claim that they managed to identify the culprits, charging four members of China’s People’s Liberation Army with the crime.

BREAKING: The Justice Department has charged four Chinese military hackers with breaking into the computer networks of Equifax and stealing the personal data of tens of millions of Americans. https://t.co/iY0Cca9dYW

— The Associated Press (@AP) February 10, 2020

The individuals in question were identified as Xu Kei, Wu Zhiyong, Liu Lei, and Wang Qian. They are currently charged with breaking into the Equifax-owned dispute portal. According to the US Justice Department Monday announcement, the attackers spent several weeks trying to determine how to break into the agency’s database, after accessing the portal website. The hackers allegedly made around 9,000 queries in an attempt to steal the data belonging to US citizens, such as names, social security numbers, and other details. However, according to the Justice Department, the hackers did not stop at stealing the customers’ data either. They also stole Equifax’s own trade secrets, including the design of the database, as well as the structure of the stored data. They also attempted to hide their tracks, and they went through quite a bit of effort to do so. Some of the methods they used included routing their traffic through 34 different servers, located in around 20 countries. Attorney General William Bar said that there is no doubt that this was a ‘deliberate and sweeping intrusion’ targeting American citizens. He continued by saying that this is the day when the US authorities hold the hackers accountable for their crimes. The Attorney General issued a warning for China as well, urging the government to remember that the US has the capability to remove the cloak of anonymity from the internet and track the hackers that nations keep deploying against the country. After all, the hack of Equifax was only one attempt by China to use state-sponsored hackers for performing computer intrusions across the world. The US also published photos of the four individuals it charged, two of which wore military uniforms.

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