Page 24 - aruba-today-20200213

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Thursday 13 February 2020
Equifax hack highlights China interest in U.S. personal data

By FRANK BAJAK The security firm Symantec
AP Technology Writer said the hack was believed
BOSTON (AP) — In 2014, to be the work of a well-
the Obama administra- resourced Chinese group it
tion accused five Chinese called Black Vine that had
military agents of targeting been conducting cyber-
Pittsburgh-area industrial espionage targeting indus-
companies including West- tries including aerospace,
inghouse Electric, Alcoa energy and health care.
and U.S. Steel. Since then, MARRIOTT
the number of compa- Beginning in 2014, hack-
nies allegedly targeted by ers extracted data includ-
Chinese hackers has only ing credit card and pass-
grown. port numbers, birth dates,
Chinese President Xi Jinping phone numbers and hotel
assured th en-President arrival and departure dates
Barack Obama in 2015 his on as many as 383 million
military would stop steal- guests of the hotel chain.
ing commercial secrets The breach went unde-
from U.S. companies. The tected for four years and
evidence indicates that affected hotels in the Star-
pledge was short-lived, if it wood chain that Marriott
was honored at all. From left, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Seth Ducharm, Chris Hacker, Special acquired in 2016.
The latest in a string of Chi- Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta, Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski, Attorney General Analysts noted that infor-
na-linked hacking incidents William Barr, Assistant Attorney General John Demers, and U.S. Attorney for the Northern District mation from hotels — com-
came with the Monday in- of Georgia Byung "BJay" Pak, attend a news conference, Monday, Feb. 10, 2020, at the Justice mon venues of extramarital
dictment of four members Department in Washington. trysts and corporate espio-
of the Chinese military for Associated Press nage — could be used for
breaking into the credit- points on Americans that U.S. national security, the lion current and former cus- blackmail and counteres-
reporting agency Equifax could be used to cross- personal data of more than tomers and employees of pionage. On Monday, At-
in 2017. reference data and obtain 21 million current, former the Indiana-based health torney General William Barr
The motives, a s with sev- deep insights into individual and prospective federal insurer over at least seven blamed the hack on Chi-
eral others hacks that pre- lives. employees was stolen. Al- months ending in January nese agents.
ceded it, appear to be The data could be used though a first hacker was 2015. Two members of a OTHER MAJOR CORPORA-
more about espionage t in the recruitment of spies, detected in March 2014, a hacking group operating TIONS AND AGENCIES
han stealing trade secrets, and the hackers may have second intruder went un- from China were later in- Two hackers were indict-
cybersecurity experts say. seeded cover identities for detected until April 2015, dicted in the biggest health ed in December 2018 for
Among other things, ex- Chinese agents inside Equi- by which time data on se- care hack in U.S. history. extensive data theft from
perts who monitor the dark fax's databases, said Pris- curity clearances, back- Stolen data included So- major corporations in the
web say they have seen no cilla Moriuchi, a former NSA ground checks and fin- cial Security numbers, birth U.S. and nearly a dozen
evidence of data stolen in employee now at the cy- gerprint records had been dates, email addresses, other nations beginning
the Equifax hack — or in an bersecurity firm Recorded extracted. A House inquiry employment details, in- in 2006, allegedly on be-
earlier breach of Marriott Future. said the hack was likely the comes and street address- half of Beijing's main intelli-
— being sold to common Here are the biggest cases work of "Deep Panda," a es. Anthem said it had no gence agency. They alleg-
criminals for ID theft and of wholesale data theft group linked to the Chinese evidence that medical edly obtained names, So-
credit card fraud. blamed on Chinese agents. military. or financial information cial Security numbers and
The state-backed Chinese OFFICE OF PERSONNEL ANTHEM was taken or than any of other personal information
hackers allegedly vacu- MANAGEMENT Hackers stole personal in- the data stolen resulted in of more than 100,000 Navy
umed up billions of data In a devastating blow to formation on nearly 80 mil- fraud. personnel.q

UK announces plan to fine firms for harmful online content

LONDON (AP) — The Brit- take effect. It said officials tolerated. Online compa-
ish government says it will were working "at pace" nies "will be required to ex-
give regulators the power to draft a new law. Of- plicitly state what content
to fine social media com- com will hold companies and behaviour is accept-
panies for harmful material to account if they don't able on their sites in clear
on their platforms. deal with harmful material, and accessible terms and
Plans announced Wednes- and platforms will have to conditions and enforce
day would give the U.K.'s remove "illegal content" these effectively, consis-
t e l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n s quickly and "minimize the tently and transparently,"
watchdog, Ofcom, power risk of it appearing." the government said.
to enforce a "duty of care" This combination of images shows logos for companies from In order to safeguard free- Tech companies wel-
on companies such as left, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. dom of expression, the comed the regulations.
Facebook and Twitter "to Associated Press rules won't ban people "Facebook has long called
protect users from harm- from accessing or posting for new regulations to set
ful and illegal terrorist and sanctioned. Ofcom cur- peat offenders off the air. offensive but legal con- high standards across the
child abuse content." rently keeps tabs on radio The government said it tent, though the govern- internet," said Rebecca
Firms that allow harmful and television broadcast- was "minded" to make the ment indicated it would Stimson, the social net-
material to flourish or don't ers, and has the power to changes, but new legisla- let internet companies work's head of U.K. public
remove it quickly could be levy fines or even kick re- tion will be needed for it to decide what material is policy. q