U.S. authorities charged five individuals in the Chinese Army with hacking into U.S. company computers — the first time in U.S. history that criminal charges have been filed against another country for computer espionage.
“When a foreign nation uses military or intelligence resources and tools against an American executive or corporation to obtain trade secrets or sensitive information for the benefit of its state-owned companies we must say: Enough is enough,” Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday in a press conference. “This administration will not tolerate actions by any nation that seeks to illegally sabotage American companies and undermine the integrity of fair competition in the operation of the free market.”
This operation should serve as a “wake-up call” to the seriousness of the ongoing threat of cybercrimes, Mr. Holder said, adding that the U.S. doesn’t collect intelligence to help U.S. companies.
The Chinese attempted to steal secrets from six entities in the steel and energy segments. U.S. Steel, Alcoa, Allegheny Technologies Inc., or ATI, a specialty steelmaker, Westinghouse, the U.S. Steelworkers’ Union and SolarWorld were were all targeted in the scheme that allegedly began in 2006.
U.S. government officials have long said that China has aggressively pursued cyber-espionage — trying to gather trade secrets and intellectual property knowledge from U.S. companies. China has denied this charge, saying it’s not based in fact.
FBI Director James B. Comey testified at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing in November that the risk of cyberattacks is likely to surpass al Qaeda and other terrorist networks as the top national security threat to the United States and will become the main focus of law enforcement and intelligence services.
“We have connected all of our lives — personal, professional and national — to the Internet,” Mr. Comey said. “That’s where the bad guys will go because that’s where our lives are, our money, our secrets.”
