Hackers linked to Chinese government targeted critics, politicians and businesses, U.S., U.K. allege

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Hackers linked to the Chinese government launched a sweeping, state-backed operation that targeted United States officials, journalists, corporations, pro-democracy activists and Britain’s election watchdog, American and British authorities said Monday as they announced a set of criminal charges and sanctions in the case.

Authorities on both sides of the Atlantic have nicknamed the hacking group Advanced Persistent Threat 31 or “APT31.″ The U.S. Justice Department said in a news release that APT31 is part of a program run by China’s Hubei State Security Department, an arm of China’s Ministry of State Security located in the city of Wuhan.

The department said the hacking campaign began at least as early as 2010, and that its intention was to harass critics of the Chinese government, steal trade secrets of U.S. corporations and spy on and track high-level political figures.

American authorities said the campaign also amounted to foreign interference, because it targeted officials in the White House, State Department and Department of Justice, as well as members of Congress and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an organization of elected officials around the world that works to counter threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party.

The Justice Department charged seven alleged hackers, all believed to be living in China. The British government, in a related announcement, imposed sanctions on two of them, in connection with a breach that officials say may have given China access to information held by Britain’s Electoral Commission on tens of millions of voters there.

The indictment arrives just eight months before incumbent President Joe Biden is set to face Donald Trump in a rematch U.S. presidential election. In 2016, a Russian hacking operation sowed discord during the presidential election and tarnished Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

“Today’s announcements underscore the need to remain vigilant to cybersecurity threats and the potential for cyber-enabled foreign malign influence efforts, especially as we approach the 2024 election cycle,” Matthew Olsen, assistant attorney-general of the Justice Department’s national-security division, said in a statement.

Foreign interference remains a concern in Canada as well, after a year of revelations about meddling in Canadian elections and other threats, many originating from China. The federal government is poised to resume a public inquiry into foreign interference from Beijing and other authoritarian regimes next week. Members of ethnic diaspora groups targeted by China for criticizing its repressive policies in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet are scheduled to testify. So are critics of China’s menacing of Taiwan.

The Canadian government did not immediately respond to questions about whether Canada had also been targeted in the hacking campaign. In a social-media post, the Department of Global Affairs condemned the hacking that targeted Britain without naming the Chinese government.

In a news release, Breon Peace, a federal prosecutor in New York who filed the indictment, addressed the sheer scope of the alleged espionage and hidden influence.

“These allegations pull back the curtain on China’s vast illegal hacking operation that targeted sensitive data from U.S. elected and government officials, journalists and academics; valuable information from American companies; and political dissidents in America and abroad,” he said.

In the indictment against the seven alleged hackers, unsealed Monday, U.S. prosecutors said the hacking resulted in confirmed or potential intrusions into work accounts, personal e-mails, online storage and telephone call records belonging to millions of Americans.

Officials in London accused APT31 of hacking British lawmakers critical of China and said that a second group of Chinese spies was behind the hack of Britain’s Electoral Commission. That hack, they said, separately compromised the data of millions more people.

Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a former senior official at Canada’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and a director at the China Strategic Risks Institute, said she is sure similar hacking has taken place in Canada.

“Certainly we know that Beijing has developed a database of information to track the activities of individuals, including Canadians, who have been critical of China and other persons of influence. With upcoming elections in the U.S. and Canada, it’s in our interest to call out such activity to shut it down.”

With reports from the Associated Press and Reuters