WASHINGTON, D.C. (NBC) – Four members of China’s military are charged with a massive hack of Equifax. The four were indicted by a federal grand jury last week with U.S. Attorney General William Barr announcing the charges Monday. They include economic espionage and wire fraud.
The 2017 hack of the credit reporting agency compromised the personal information of tens of millions of Americans.
Barr said, “The scale of the theft was staggering. As alleged in the indictment, the hackers obtained the names, birthdates, and Social security numbers of nearly 150 million Americans and the drivers licenses of approximately 10, of at least 10 million Americans.”
According to Barr, the U.S. government doesn’t normally charge members of another country’s military, but there are exceptions. “We have charged state-sponsored actors for computer intrusions in the United States for the purpose of intellectual property theft for the use of their private sector,” he stated, “including bank robbery and interference with our democratic elections.”
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