A U.S. grand jury has indicted five Chinese military officers on charges of hacking into American companies for information on nuclear plant design, solar manufacturing and other secrets in the toughest action taken by Washington to address cyber spying.
China denied the charges, saying they were “made up” and would damage trust between the two nations. The Chinese foreign ministry said it would suspend the activities of a Sino-U.S. Internet working group.
Officials in Washington have argued for years that cyber espionage is one of the nation’s top national security concerns because foreign hackers have stolen secrets from defence contractors and technology secrets that could pose a threat to U.S. prosperity.
Yet the indictments mark the first time the United States has filed charges against specific officials of foreign governments, accusing them of corporate cyber spying.
“When a foreign nation uses military or intelligence resources and tools against an American executive or corporation to obtain trade secrets or sensitive business information for the benefit of its state-owned companies, we must say, ‘enough is enough’,” U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, said at a press conference.
Washington announced the charges as new claims emerged last week about the scope of overseas spying by the United States. Cisco Systems Inc responded by asking President Barack Obama to curtail government surveillance programs.
Federal prosecutors said the suspects targeted companies in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the nuclear power, metal and solar energy industries.
Targets included Alcoa Inc, Allegheny Technologies Inc, United States Steel Corp, Westinghouse Electric Co, U.S. subsidiaries of SolarWorld AG and a steel workers’ union, Department of Justice officials said.
Officials declined to estimate the size of the losses to the U.S. companies at issue, but said they were “significant.”
Some of the companies gave their response to the indictments.
“We are happy that the American government is taking the initiative now and we support the U.S. authorities’ investigations to investigate this under criminal law,” SolarWorld CEO, Frank Asbeck, said in a statement.
Alcoa spokeswoman Monica Orbe said: “To our knowledge, no material information was compromised.”
U.S. Steel declined to comment.
