China accused a US spy agency of hacking the Asian Winter Games held this year in Harbin, and took the unusual step of identifying individuals it thinks are responsible.
The US National Security Agency’s Office of Tailored Access Operations carried out the attacks, which targeted “registration, arrival/departure management, and competition entry platforms,” state news agency Xinhua said, citing Harbin police. “Vast amounts of sensitive personal data of individuals associated with the games” was stored on the computer systems, it said.
Police named three NSA agents suspected of carrying out the hacking as Katheryn A. Wilson, Robert J. Snelling and Stephen W. Johnson, according to Xinhua. The three also participated in operations targeting Huawei Technologies Co., it said. Bloomberg News wasn’t immediately able to verify whether employees with those names work for the NSA.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters the hacks “severely endangered the security of China’s critical information infrastructure, national defense, finance, society, production, as well as citizens’ personal information.”
The NSA didn’t respond to a request for comment outside of normal business hours.
China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center said this month that more than 270,000 foreign cyberattacks were recorded on computer networks associated with the Asian Winter Games between Feb. 7 and Feb. 14. About two-thirds of the attacks were traced to the United States, it said.
Washington has said that Beijing presents the “most active and persistent cyber threat to US government, private-sector, and critical infrastructure networks,” pointing to a campaign of cyber attacks against critical infrastructure known as “Volt Typhoon.”
Last month, US prosecutors charged 10 Chinese citizens and two government agents for hacks that targeted dissidents, religious groups, news outlets and American government agencies.
In January, Bloomberg News reported that the computer of former US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was infiltrated and unclassified files were accessed as part of a broader breach of the agency by Chinese state-sponsored hackers.
Chinese officials have denied US allegations, and a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in December that accusations that the government was behind the Treasury hack were “unwarranted and groundless.”
Photograph: A person types at a backlit keyboard arranged in Danbury, U.K., on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021. Photo credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
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