Equifax breach linked to China

WASHINGTON – Four members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have been charged with hacking into the computer systems of the credit reporting agency Equifax in 2017, which Attorney General William Barr called a “deliberate and sweeping intrusion” that compromised private data of 145 million Americans.

The suspects were members of the PLA’s 54th Research Institute, according to a nine-count federal indictment unsealed Monday. Wu Zhiyong, Wang Qian, Xu Ke and Liu Lei were charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, conspiracy to commit economic espionage and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

“The scale of the theft was staggering,” Barr said Monday. “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 had to take measures to protect against identity theft.”

FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich described the intrusion as the largest instance of state-sponsored theft in U.S. history.

The Chinese army identified a flaw in Equifax’s security system, executed a plan of attack to penetrate the system and devised a scheme to cover their tracks on their way out, according to the indictment.