Security News
The U.S. Justice Department today unsealed indictments against four Chinese officers of the People's Liberation Army accused of perpetrating the 2017 hack against consumer credit bureau Equifax that led to the theft of personal data on nearly 150 million Americans. While the DOJ's announcement today portrays Equifax in a somewhat sympathetic light, it's important to remember that Equifax repeatedly has proven itself an extremely poor steward of the highly sensitive information that it holds on most Americans.
Four members of the Chinese military have been charged with breaking into the networks of the Equifax credit reporting agency and stealing the personal information of tens of millions of Americans, the Justice Department said Monday, blaming Beijing for one of the largest hacks in history to target consumer data. The case is the latest Justice Department accusation against Chinese hackers suspected of breaching networks of American corporations.
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 United States government has officially charged four members of China's People's Liberation Army with hacking into credit reporting agency Equifax and being responsible for the massive data breach that exposed highly sensitive information on more than 145 million Americans. "Today, we hold PLA hackers accountable for their criminal actions, and we remind the Chinese government that we have the capability to remove the Internet's cloak of anonymity and find the hackers that nation repeatedly deploys against us. Unfortunately, the Equifax hack fits a disturbing and unacceptable pattern of state-sponsored computer intrusions and thefts by China and its citizens that have targeted personally identifiable information, trade secrets, and other confidential information."
The United States Department of Justice today announced charges against 4 Chinese military hackers who were allegedly behind the Equifax data breach that exposed the personal and financial data of nearly 150 million Americans. In September 2017, credit reporting agency Equifax disclosed it had become a victim of a massive cyberattack that left highly sensitive data of nearly half of the U.S. population in the hands of hackers.
The United States Department of Justice today announced charges against 4 Chinese military hackers who were allegedly behind the Equifax data breach that exposed the personal and financial data of nearly 150 million Americans. In September 2017, credit reporting agency Equifax disclosed it had become a victim of a massive cyberattack that left highly sensitive data of nearly half of the U.S. population in the hands of hackers.
The Gamaredon advanced persistent threat group has been supercharging its operations lately, improving its toolset and ramping up attacks on Ukrainian national security targets. Vitali Kremez, head of SentinelLabs, said in research released on Wednesday that he has been tracking an uptick in Gamaredon cyberattacks on Ukrainian military and security institutions that started in December.
Cybersecurity researchers are sounding the alarm about Emotet, a powerful email malware that is now being used to attack U.S. government and military targets. "We track it heavily, as it's continuing to spin up and send out email messages, we pick up on that quickly. Emotet is everywhere. I see Emotet infections and Emotet traffic happening all the time. It's an opportunistic threat, so as it comprises a system, harvest email addresses off of it and use other email addresses to attack."
The US military claims to have "Successfully" disrupted the online propaganda efforts of the Islamic State in a hacking operation dating back at least to 2016, according to declassified national security documents released Tuesday. The heavily redacted, previously top secret documents said the US Cyber Command "Successfully contested ISIS in the information domain" and limited its online efforts on radicalization and recruitment "By imposing time and resource costs" on the jihadist group.
Iran is widely expected to ramp up cyberattacks against the United States in response to the US killing of a top Iranian leader this month even as fears have receded about a military confrontation between the two countries. While Iran appeared to be "Standing down" from a military response, according to US President Donald Trump, the cyber threat remains real, said analysts.