Victims of the hackers include US-based critics of the Chinese government, Asian government foreign ministries, and US federal and state agencies, the Justice Department said. Some of them were hacked as recently as last year.
The charges are the first major hacking-related national security case brought under President Donald Trump’s Justice Department, though the investigation began long before Trump took office.
Separate indictments out of the US District for the District of Columbia and the Southern District of New York accused China’s security services of exploiting a sprawling hacker-for-hire network to feed Chinese transnational repression and conduct surveillance. None of the 12 defendants are in US custody.
Taken together, the indictments showcase the Chinese government’s alleged voracious appetite for data on American citizens and Chinese dissidents. China’s hacker-for-hire ecosystem “by any measure, has gotten out of control,” a Justice Department official told reporters on Wednesday.
In response to the charges, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, reiterated China’s longstanding denials that it conducts hacking operations. “China will take necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and citizens,” Liu said.
The hacking revelations come at a time of acute tension between the world’s two superpowers. Trump has imposed steep tariffs on Chinese imports to the US, and Beijing has hit back with tariffs of its own on US exports.
Cyber activity has been a longstanding source of tension in the US- China relationship. The US has accused Beijing of stealing intellectual property and of burrowing into US military transportation networks to potentially sabotage any US response to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Chinese hackers have also targeted the phone communications of the most senior of US political figures, including Trump and Vice President JD Vance, CNN has reported.
China has, in turn, accused the US government of conducting cyberattacks against Chinese organizations. But US officials say they do not use hacking for transnational repression and potential sabotage of critical infrastructure the way China does.
The range of hacking activity covered in the indictments unsealed Wednesday, and by recent US sanctions, span more than decade. It includes everything from allegedly pilfering data from US tech firms to targeting a US-based newspaper that is critical of Beijing.
One of the 12 defendants, 38-year-old Yin Kecheng, who was indicted in the District of Columbia, is accused of being involved in a hack of the Treasury Department in December that CNN reported compromised an office that reviews foreign investments for national security risks.
In another incident in 2017, according to one of the indictments, the hackers-for-hire unsuccessfully tried to break into email accounts of employees of the Defense Intelligence Agency, which supports US military activity.
Eight of the Chinese nationals charged in the Southern District of New York on Wednesday allegedly worked for a China-based company called I-Soon that suffered a damaging leak of confidential information last year. The leaked information — the source of which is unclear — included a list of scores of contracts between the company and China’s police, intelligence service and military.
In a leaked marketing presentation, I-Soon touted its participation in an unspecified hacking project for China’s Ministry of Public Security in 2018, CNN previously reported. The project “achieved significant results” and received “recognition and praise” from Chinese officials, according to a presentation slide.
The Justice Department charges were announced as the US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party held a hearing in search of ways to defend against and deter Chinese cyber operations.
The Chinese government “is conducting a comprehensive campaign against the United States, and our current defenses are not keeping pace,” Rob Joyce, who spent multiple decades at the National Security Agency before retiring last year, told lawmakers during the hearing.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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