The United States Sues China for Stealing Data of 145 Million Citizens on the Grounds of "cyber Attacks"

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Monday (February 10) that it had filed a lawsuit against four Chinese military members, alleging that they were involved in a massive attack on the database of Equifax, a giant U.S. credit rating agency, in 2017, obtaining the private data of 145 million American citizens. The FBI also said that it had not found any evidence that the data was used.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Monday (February 10) that it had filed a lawsuit against four Chinese military personnel, alleging that they were involved in In 2017, a massive attack on the database of Equifax, a giant US credit rating agency, obtained the private data of 145 million US citizens.

U.S. Justice Department files lawsuit against military personnel

The U.S. Department of Justice’s official website has released relevant news:

“ According to the indictment, several defendants exploited a vulnerability in the Apache Struts web framework software in Adobe software used by Equifax in May 2017 to gain employee privileges and access the intranet. They used 34 servers in nearly 20 countries around the world and spent several weeks running queries and downloading data.

The attackers ran about 9,000 queries on the Erimax system, obtaining the names, birth dates and Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, etc. of nearly half of the US citizens.”

US officials said "This is the biggest data theft in history", believing that there is a powerful institution behind it,But it also said there was no evidence that the data was being used.

The New York Times uses the title "Chinese Hacking Is Alarming. So Are Data Brokers".The content reviewed the incident and also mentioned Equifax's poor history in data security.

Equifax: America's oldest data agency

Equifax is an American consumer credit reporting agency founded in 1899. Headquartered in Atlanta, USA, it is a New York Stock Exchange listed company with annual revenue of US$2.7 billion and more than 9,000 employees in 14 countries.

Equifax, along with Experian and TransUnion, is considered the three largest credit agencies in the United States and the oldest of the three, collecting and storing information on more than 800 million consumers and more than 88 million businesses worldwide.

On February 10, Equifax CEO Mark W. Begor issued a statement on the incident on the company's official website.

“ We are grateful to the Justice Department and the FBI for their tireless efforts in determining that the military arm of China was responsible for the cyberattack on Equifax in 2017.”

The letter thanked the U.S. justice department and the FBI for their work and stated that they would actively take security defense measures.
However, various sectors of society believe that this statement is insignificant and does not address Equifax's long-standing data security issues.

This data breach incident,Equifax eventually reached a settlement with regulators for up to $700 million, part of which will be used to compensate affected consumers.

But as of the end of last year, only about 10% of the 147 million affected consumers had applied for compensation, and more than 4.5 million claimants received a maximum of $125 in cash.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded today: No double standards!

Also on this day (February 11), Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang hosted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ regular online press conference.

Geng Shuang said that the Chinese government's position on cyber security issues is consistent and clear. We have always firmly opposed and cracked down on all forms of cyber hacker attacks in accordance with the law.

China is a staunch defender of cybersecurity.The Chinese government and military and their related personnel never engage in or participate in activities that steal trade secrets through the Internet.

Geng Shuang said that for a long time, the US government and relevant departments have violated international law and basic norms of international relations and carried out large-scale, organized and indiscriminate cyber espionage, wiretapping and surveillance against foreign governments, enterprises and individuals. This is a fact known to the world.

From "WikiLeaks" to the "Snowden incident", the hypocrisy and double standards of the United States on cybersecurity issues have long been obvious.According to a large amount of publicly disclosed information, relevant US agencies have been conducting network intrusions, eavesdropping and monitoring on many government departments, institutions, companies, universities and individuals, including those of its allies.

China is also a serious victim of the US's cyber espionage, wiretapping and surveillance.China has lodged solemn representations to the US on many occasions, demanding that the US provide an explanation and immediately stop such activities.

This is not the first time targeting China

As early as 2014, the US Department of Justice announced the prosecution of five Chinese military personnel, accusing them of hacking into the internal networks of Westinghouse Electric, SolarWorld, American Steel, Allegheny Technologies and Alcoa and stealing confidential information between 2006 and 2014 to help Chinese companies, especially Chinese state-owned enterprises, gain a competitive advantage.

The indictment lists the names, nicknames, photos and other identity information of the five soldiers, and describes in detail the specific time, location, people and other event information of the so-called "cyber attack."

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