Security News > 2020 > February > Equifax Breach: Four Members of Chinese Military Charged with Hacking

U.S. authorities have charged four Chinese military officers in the 2017 Equifax data breach, which compromised the data of nearly 150 million.

The four, Wu Zhiyong, Wang Qian, Xu Ke and Liu Lei, are believed to be members of the 54th Research Institute of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, a component of the Chinese military.

The Department of Justice alleges that they hacked into the credit reporting agency's network on the hunt for sensitive Equifax consumer data, as well as valuable Equifax trade secrets.

Over several weeks, they accused of then running 9,000 queries to sniff out and exfiltrate sensitive customer data, including Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and some driver's license numbers, as well as Equifax trade secret information.

In January 2020, a Georgia court granted final approval for an Equifax settlement in a class-action lawsuit, in which Equifax will pay $380.5 million to settle lawsuits regarding the 2017 data breach.

News URL

https://threatpost.com/equifax-breach-four-members-of-chinese-military-charged-with-hacking/152739/