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WASHINGTON (Reuters): The US Justice Department has indicted five Chinese residents and two Malaysian businessmen in a broad hacking effort that ranged from video games to pro-democracy activists.
Federal prosecutors said Chinese nationals had been charged with hacking more than 100 companies in the United States and abroad, including software development companies, computer manufacturers, telecommunications providers, social media companies, companies from games, non-profit organizations, universities and think tanks, as well as foreign governments and politicians and figures from civil society in Hong Kong.
Along with the alleged hackers, US prosecutors also charged two Malaysian businessmen, Wong Ong Hua, 46, and Ling Yang Ching, 32, who were charged with conspiring with two of the digital spies to profit from intrusions. information technology aimed at video game companies in the United States. , France, Japan, Singapore and South Korea.
The Justice Department said the couple operated through a Malaysian company called SEA Gamer Mall.
Messages left with the company were not immediately returned.
US officials stopped short of claiming that the hackers were working on behalf of Beijing, but in a statement, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen expressed his exasperation with Chinese authorities, saying that they were at least turning a blind eye to cyber espionage. .
“We know that Chinese authorities are at least as capable as law enforcement authorities here and in like-minded states of enforcing the laws against hacking,” Rosen said. “But they choose not to.”
In addition, he alleged that one of the Chinese defendants had boasted to a colleague that he was “very close” to the Chinese Ministry of State Security and would be protected “unless something very important happens.”
“No responsible government knowingly protects cybercriminals who target victims around the world in acts of rank theft,” Rosen said.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
Beijing has repeatedly denied responsibility for piracy in the face of a growing pile of accusations from US authorities.
Messages sent to email addresses allegedly maintained by hackers also received no immediate response.
US Assistant Attorney General for Homeland Security John Demers said on Wednesday (September 16) that the Malaysian defendants were in custody but would likely oppose extradition.
The Justice Department said it obtained search warrants this month, resulting in the seizure of hundreds of “dead-end” accounts, servers, domain names, and web pages used by suspected hackers to help divert data from their victims. .
The department said that technology giant Microsoft Corp had developed measures to block hackers and that the company’s actions “were an important part” of the overall US effort to neutralize them.
The company acknowledged this in a statement applauding government officials for “taking steps to protect our customers.” – Reuters
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