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The U.S. Department of Justice has filed charges against two Chinese hackers tied to cyber attacks to steal corporate secrets, including researchers working on business development Corona virus Vaccine.
In court documents released Tuesday, the US accused Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi, two Chinese nationals who allegedly hacked on behalf of the Chinese government. The indictment alleges that the alleged hackers have investigated vulnerabilities in the networks of research companies known to work on COVID-19 vaccines.
Before the pandemic, the two were responsible for hacking companies, game software manufacturers, and pharmaceutical and technology companies to steal their secrets, the indictment said. The Department of Justice said the first attack was discovered in Hanford, Washington. The victims were in countries such as the United States, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and South Korea. Prosecutors said the hackers had been stealing secrets since at least September 2009.
Xiaoyu and Jiazhi have "stolen hundreds of millions of dollars of business secrets, intellectual property, and other valuable business information," the prosecutor said. The targets also included defense companies and information on military satellite programs.
According to the indictment, the two would use known vulnerabilities that have not been resolved or newly discovered vulnerabilities provided by the Chinese government. They often stole passwords and continuously accessed a network while remaining undetected.
"The scale and scope of the hacking activities sponsored by the PRC's intelligence services against the United States and our international partners are unlike any other threat we face today," said FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich at a press conference on Tuesday.
In May the FBI said it was Investigation of hacking trials from China against COVID-19 vaccine research centers. China is not the only country that wants to gain an advantage in the pandemic through cyber attacks. Officials from the UK, Canada and the US also have accused Russian hackers attempts to steal information about a COVID-19 vaccine.
To date, more than 14 million COVID-19 cases with 610,000 deaths have been confirmed worldwide. Infection rates in the US are increasing, while countries that have strictly enforced social distancing and face mask guidelines have shown good results in outbreak control.
Researchers around the world are working to develop a vaccine against the highly infectious disease, and the first country to launch a vaccine is expected to have global and financial benefits in the coming years. On Tuesday, a team from Oxford University announced that it had had promising results with its coronavirus vaccine trials.
The alleged hackers had targeted a biotech company in Maryland that was researching a vaccine against COVID-19 and a company in Massachusetts that had been developing therapies for the disease. Xiaoyu and Jiazhi also targeted COVID-19 treatment researchers at two California companies in February and May, said William Hyslop, a US attorney for the Eastern District of Washington.
While the indictment does not specify whether or not the hackers received one of the key research results, there is still concern that even an attempted cyberattack can affect vaccine development. Deputy Attorney General for National Security, John Demers, said researchers must continue to ensure that target data was not manipulated during the process.
"We are concerned that hacking or even attempting to hack this information can slow down research," said Demers.
In addition, the hackers had helped the Chinese government spy on Chinese dissidents, including an organizer in Hong Kong, a former Tiananmen Square protester, and two Canadian residents campaigning for the liberation of Hong Kong.
Court documents show that Chinese hackers were responsible for stealing terabytes of data from US technology companies, including documents related to projects with the U.S. Air Force and the FBI.
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