Security News > 2020 > March > Forget James Bond's super-gadgets, this chap spied for China using SD card dead drops. Now he's behind bars

Peng earlier confessed that SD cards loaded with information stolen from an unspecified US company were left for him to collect at hotels by a contact only known as Ed. Peng would also hide tens of thousands of dollars in hotel rooms for Ed to collect as payment.

Prosecution paperwork [PDF] stated that, from 2015 through 2019, Peng agreed to, under orders from the Chinese Ministry of State Security, collect SD cards filled with stolen corporate information, and fly to China to drop them off to government snoops.

In Beijing, Peng meets with agents of the Ministry of State Security, including the People's Republic of China official with whom Peng had been communicating, and delivers the SD card to MSS. A PRC official uses coded language to tell Peng that another dead drop will occur on April 23, 2016.

Hours later, Peng returns, observes that the money had been retrieved and determines that a cigarette pack with an SD card inside of it has been left for him in place of the money.

"Peng acted as an agent of the Chinese Ministry of State Security in the United States, conducting numerous dead drops here on their behalf and delivering classified information to them in China." .

News URL

https://go.theregister.co.uk/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/19/sd_card_spy_china/