WASHINGTON–A federal grand jury has charged four members of the Chinese People's Liberation Army with being behind the hack of Equifax, one of the largest thefts of personal data and trade secrets in history.
In announcing the charges, U.S. Attorney General William Barr called the 2017 theft “staggering” in scope given the suspects stolen information on approximately 150-million Americans.
Barr called the hack one of the largest on record and was a "deliberate and sweeping intrusion into the private information of the American people,” adding the theft “not only caused significant financial damage to Equifax, but invaded the privacy of many millions of Americans, and imposed substantial costs and burdens on them as they have had to take measures to protect against identity theft.”
The charges are the latest by the U.S. against members of the military or intelligence services in other countries related to hacking.
According to Barr, "This data has economic value and these thefts can feed China's development of artificial intelligence tools as well as the creation of intelligence targeting packages.”
Hack Was Not Initially Announced
As CUToday.info reported earlier, Equifax announced the hack in September of 2017, approximately three months after the company discovered its systems had been penetrated. Among the data stolen were names, Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers and addresses.
According to authorities, the hackers were able to take advantage of a security flaw in a tool designed to build web applications to steal customer data.
As CUToday.info also reported, the data breach prompted the resignation of CEO Richard Smith and investigations by federal regulators, multiple states attorneys general and the company faces a number of civil lawsuits.