DOJ Charges 12 Chinese Nationals With Treasury Department Hack

The Trump administration announced charges and sanctions against a dozen Chinese nationals — including two tied to the Chinese government — for hacking critical U.S. government systems. The steps were taken as two House committees held hearings about ongoing Chinese intrusions into U.S. networks — a major concern after several massive Chinese-linked breaches into U.S. critical infrastructure, including the recent Salt Typhoon infiltration into U.S. telecommunication networks and a hack of the Treasury Department, reports Politico. The Justice Department brought charges against 12 Chinese nationals for the Treasury breach and other attacks on groups or individuals critical of the Chinese government. These included attacks on an unnamed large religious group in the U.S. that sent missionaries to China, foreign ministries of Asian nations and other U.S. federal and state agencies.

Those charged included Chinese nationals Yin Kecheng and Zhou Shuai for their involvement in cyberattacks as far back as 2013. Both were identified as members of the APT27 hacking group, a Chinese hacking operation that has targeted dozens of organizations globally, including U.S. defense contractors. The group is also known as Silk Typhoon by Microsoft, which published findings Wednesday about the hacking group's shifting its tactics to go after IT tools across U.S. sectors. In many cases, the Justice Department alleged that the Chinese government was using a hackers-for-hire system by paying private Chinese companies to hack and steal information in order to obscure government connections to the hacks. The moves by the Justice Department come more than two months after Treasury Department officials told Congress that the agency’s networks had been compromised by Chinese hackers obtaining a key used by a third-party vendor to provide the agency with remote technical support.