A senior US Department of Homeland Security official has confirmed to the New York Times that Chinese hackers broke into the computer networks of the government agency with personal details of all federal employees. The incident, which is said to have happened in March, was apparently a bid to access the files of tens of thousands of US government employees who have applied for top-secret security clearance.
However, the official told the newspaper that the government had not “identified any loss of personally identifiable information” after federal authorities detected the attack and blocked the hackers from the network. It is also not clear if the hackers were part of the Chinese government.
In May this year, the US announced charges against five Chinese military officers for cybersecurity breaches against six American commercial targets, but China retaliated by saying the facts were “intentionally fabricated.”
➤ Chinese Hackers Pursue Key Data on U.S. Workers [New York Times]
Thumbnail image via Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images
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