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Chinese military personnel charged in US over Equifax cyber attack

Published on: 14 Feb 2020

Four members of the Chinese military have been charged in the US as being responsible for a major cyber attack on the credit checking agency Equifax.

The incident occurred in 2017, when hackers were able to find a vulnerability in the firm's online complaints system and steal the personal information of 15 million Britons and 147 million Americans.

One of the biggest data breaches in history, it also went undetected for months because Equifax had failed to renew an encryption certificate on one of its security tools.

Now, Wu Zhiyong, Wang Qian, Xu Ke and Liu Lei - all of whom were part of a hacking unit from the Chinese People's Liberation Army - have been indicted by a grand jury in the US on counts including computer fraud and economic espionage.

Equifax said in a statement: "Cyber crime is one of the greatest threats facing our nation today, and it is an ongoing battle that every company will continue to face as attackers grow more sophisticated."