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posted by martyb on Wednesday July 22 2020, @08:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the NOW-they-tell-us? dept.

DOJ: Chinese hackers stole "hundreds of millions of dollars" of secrets

Two state-sponsored hackers in China targeted US businesses in a "sophisticated and prolific threat" for more than 10 years, both for financial gain and to steal trade secrets, the Department of Justice said today.

The 11-count indictment (PDF), which was made public today, alleges Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi worked with China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) and other agencies to hack into "hundreds of victim companies, governments, non-governmental organizations, and individual dissidents, clergy, and democratic and human rights activists in the United States and abroad."

Li and Dong were allegedly infiltrating networks of businesses in a wide array of sectors, including "high tech manufacturing; civil, industrial, and medical device engineering; business, educational, and gaming software development; solar energy; and pharmaceuticals," as well as defense contractors, since at least September 2009. In recent months, prosecutors allege, the two were seeking ways in to "the networks of biotech and other firms publicly known for work on COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and testing technology" in at least 11 countries, including the US.

The indictment does not name the firms in question, only saying that "on or about January 25 and 27," Li was trying to break into networks at a Maryland biotech firm and a Massachusetts biotech firm, both of which were publicly known by that point to be working on COVID-19 vaccines. Matching up the timelines, the targets seem to have been Novavax, based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Moderna, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2020, @09:07PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2020, @09:07PM (#1025123)

    > both of which were publicly known by that point to be working on COVID-19 vaccines

    Profit driven medicine is the problem here. This information should be publicly shared so progress is made more quickly instead of each research group having to repeat the same mistakes because of secrecy due to profit motives.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2020, @09:22PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2020, @09:22PM (#1025129)

    Agreed, but for some reason I suspect the groups copying secrets now would not be forthcoming to share their findings back if the information not been secret in the first place.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2020, @09:25PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2020, @09:25PM (#1025131)

      Especially if China already had a vaccine months ago and isn't telling anyone.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2020, @09:55PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2020, @09:55PM (#1025149)

        When the US liberates the information, back from east asia, there will be a parade.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2020, @09:56PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2020, @09:56PM (#1025151)

        So if I'm following you two correctly, China is stealing vaccine information, its not a big deal because it should be shared anyhow, but they're thief's and they're actually hiding the real vaccine from the world, and the country that steals secrets and makes money doing it isn't doing it this time? I can't wait to see where else you two go with this.

        I think I now understand why this type of thing makes people think that they are critically thinking. Follow me here.

        Working through a hard problem can be taxing on the brain.
        Circular thoughts can be taxing on the brain.
        For those that don't understand where to stop ruminating, it seems they confuse the two feelings for the same thing.
        Therefore, "Me Smart, U Dumb!"?

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 22 2020, @11:37PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 22 2020, @11:37PM (#1025197) Journal

          So if I'm following you two correctly, China is stealing vaccine information, its not a big deal because it should be shared anyhow, but they're thief's and they're actually hiding the real vaccine from the world, and the country that steals secrets and makes money doing it isn't doing it this time? I can't wait to see where else you two go with this.

          Three actually. Sounds something like a game of Chinese Whispers.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2020, @02:20AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2020, @02:20AM (#1025274)

      At this point, maybe not. But, early on, before the ridiculous accusations/behavior of the current POTUS, the Chinese released the full genome sequence of the virus to the world, which gave a jump start for all the research that followed.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2020, @02:29PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2020, @02:29PM (#1025397)

        or ... and this completly pulled out the famous backside, the us knew there was some sort of "dust" in the blood stream of the general world population and they kept it secret (it's not super deadly and thus obvious)
        the test (for this common dust) was weapon of economics: whenever the world needed a "downer" the test would be pulled from the shelf and it would be proclaimed "that a new super virus" was making the rounds (confirmed by the test).
        maybe the chinese made the existance of this common "dust" public to ward off the carefully timed publication by amerikan side thus throwing the whole carefully planned manouver of "put, call, sell short, buy the world economy when in the toilet" ... in the crappers?
        just ask this question: "is every and each bit in the normal, healthy and average human blood stream (or body) testable? or is there still "stuff" to discover? is the human blood stream like a harddisk where each and every bit is either there or not or is the blood still, like the amazon jungle where new lizards, frogs and blind cave amphibians are discoverable?"
        ofc, just like with covid, the newly discovered animals and plants evolved overnight. one day or one month before it didn't exist ^_^