It Was China That Stole the Data of 150 Million Americans by Hacking Equifax, Feds Say
The U.S. Justice Department has indicted four members of the Chinese military in connection with one of the biggest data breaches in history, a hack that compromised the data of nearly half of all American citizens.
The credit report giant Equifax had its systems compromised in a 2017 security breach that gave hackers access to information such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, and addresses. In total, the members of the Chinese military are accused of stealing personally identifiable information from 145 million Americans, as well as driving license numbers for ten million and the credit card numbers of around 200,000.
A nine-count indictment unveiled Monday accused four Chinese military members of hacking into the company’s computer networks, maintaining unauthorized access to them, and stealing the sensitive data. The four are named as Wu Zhiyong, Wang Qian, Xu Ke, and Liu Lei—all of them are said to have carried out the hack as part of the People's Liberation Army’s (PLA) 54th Research Institute, a component of the Chinese military.