03/25/2024

Chinese Hackers Charged in Decade-long Global Spying Rampage

U.S., U.K. officials hit APT31 with sanctions and criminal charges

For years, China’s state-backed hackers have stolen huge troves of company secrets, political intelligence and the personal information of millions of people. On Monday, officials in the United States and United Kingdom expanded the long list of hacking allegations, claiming China is responsible for breaching the U.K.’s elections watchdog and accessing 40 million people’s data. The countries also issued a raft of criminal charges and sanctions against a separate Chinese group following a multiyear hacking rampage.

In August last year, the U.K.’s Electoral Commission revealed “hostile actors” had infiltrated its systems in August 2021 and could potentially access sensitive data for 14 months until they were booted out in October 2022. The deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, told lawmakers on Monday that a China state-backed actor was responsible for the attack. In addition, Dowden said, the U.K.’s intelligence services have determined that Chinese hacking group APT31 targeted the email accounts of politicians in 2021.

"This is the latest in a clear pattern of malicious cyber activity by Chinese state-affiliated organizations and individuals targeting democratic institutions and parliamentarians in the U.K. and beyond," Dowden said in the U.K.’s House of Commons. The revelations were accompanied by the U.K. sanctioning two individuals and one company linked to APT31.

Please select this link to read the complete article from WIRED.