U.S. Charges Four Chinese Military Officers in Equifax Data Breach

China’s military was behind the largest database hacking attack in U.S. history, the Justice Department said Monday.

Prosecutors charged four members of a secretive electronic-espionage branch of the People’s Liberation Army with breaking into the networks of the Equifax credit reporting agency and stealing the personal information of 145 million Americans.

“This was a deliberate and sweeping intrusion into the private information of the American people,” said Attorney General William P. Barr, who made the announcement. “Today, we hold PLA hackers accountable for their criminal actions, and we remind the Chinese government that we have the capability to remove the Internet’s cloak of anonymity and find the hackers that nation repeatedly deploys against us. ”

The hackers successfully stole names, Social Security numbers and other personal information stored in the company’s databases. The four — members of the People’s Liberation Army, an arm of the Chinese military — are also accused of stealing the company’s trade secrets, law enforcement officials said.

“Unfortunately, the Equifax hack fits a disturbing and unacceptable pattern of state-sponsored computer intrusions and thefts by China and its citizens that have targeted personally identifiable information, trade secrets, and other confidential information,” Barr said.

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