Andrew Grossman and Danny Yardon say this new person, and two co-conspirators in China, are being prosecuted for leading an effort to steal technology from such companies as Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Since Justice seems to name names only when the companies concur, we have to assume there were more. The co-conspirators apparently gave the accused a 1500-page list of documents they wanted from Boeing. That list will be interesting reading because they usually don't ask for something they already have.
Either news is getting harder to come by, or this new Chinese hacker is important to the Justice Department. His case made the front page of today's Wall Street Journal, no small feat. http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-accuses-chinese-executive-of-hacking-to-find-military-data-1405105264?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories
What makes this a little different is the person is a freelancer who hooked up with people in China making military weapons. I mentioned the case of the companies stealing seed corn who got sentenced last week. Chinese businesses will steal almost anything, but this isn't almost anything. These are designs of aircraft used by the military.
The complaint has been sealed for a long time, showing the pace of justice, referencing attacks from 2009 to 2013. Anyone with experience with hackers knows what kind of things can be collected in that amount of time. I couldn't even guess at the volume, though we are not likely to ever know it. Justice wouldn't bring charges on every piece of data, just a few that could be proven in court. The Air Force and Justice will say the loss of the named material "is not serious" if they stick to their past statements on these kinds of thefts. These claims are incredible.
We will never know the pace or extent of hacking of U.S. defense contractors, although the Defense Science Board did more to document it than the press. We shouldn't single out Boeing and LM because there are many more on that list. Remind me of why their advertisements of cyber defense capabilities are credible. Amazon books:
No comments:
Post a Comment