U.S., U.K. accuse China of state-backed cyberattacks, voter data theft

Hackers linked to the Chinese government launched a sweeping, state-backed operation that targeted U.S. officials, journalists, corporations, pro-democracy activists and the U.K.'s election watchdog, American and British authorities said on March 25 in announcing a set of criminal charges and sanctions. “The Justice Department will not tolerate efforts by the Chinese government to intimidate Americans who serve the public, silence the dissidents who are protected by American laws, or steal from American businesses,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement, adding that the “case serves as a reminder of the ends to which the Chinese government is willing to go to target and intimidate its critics.” As part of the cyber-intrusion campaign, prosecutors said, the hackers sent more than 10,000 emails to targets all over the world that purported to be from prominent journalists but that actually contained malicious code. The hackers further leveraged that tracking to target home routers and other devices, “including those of high-ranking U.S. government officials and politicians and election campaign staff from both major U.S. political parties,” the indictment says. New Zealand joins U.S. and U.K. in claims Hackers linked to the Chinese government launched a state- “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for the Government Communications Security Bureau Judith Collins said in a media statement. Ms. Collins said the agency had also established links between a state- “The GCSB’s National Cyber Security Centre completed a robust technical assessment following a compromise of the Parliamentary Counsel Office and the Parliamentary Service in 2021, and has attributed this activity to a PRC state- “Fortunately, in this instance, the NCSC worked with the impacted organisations to contain the activity and remove the actor shortly after they were able to access the network.” The networks hacked contained important information that enables the effective operation of the New Zealand government.