By Shannon Tiezzi
The Department of Justice has charged a Chinese businessman with hacking into Boeing for commercial gain.
The U.S government has charged a Chinese businessman with hacking into Boeing and attempting to sell design information for several military planes. The accused, Su Bin, worked and lived in Canada, where he was arrested on June 28 according to the New York Times. Bin remains in custody awaiting a bail hearing later this month. The U.S. is seeking to have him extradited for trial.
According to the charges filed by U.S. prosecutors in Los Angeles, Bin conspired with other hackers to collect and attempt to sell information on several Boeing-manufactured aircraft. The hacking, which began in 2009, primarily focused on the C-17 military cargo aircraft, according to Reuters. NYT reports that Bin and his associated stole over 65 gigabytes of data from Boeing between 2010 and 2012, with the majority focused on the C-17. However, Bin also attained smaller amounts of data relating to the F-22 and F-35 jets manufactured by Lockheed Martin. The court documents do not say whether Bin was successful in selling any data to the companies he contacted in China, which included several state-owned enterprises.
The charges against Bin come nearly two months after the Department of Justice indicted five PLA officers on charges of hacking and economic espionage. U.S.-China relations are still suffering from the fallout of that decision — immediately after the announcement was made, China suspended the U.S.-China cyber working group and it has yet to be revived.
Read the full story at The Diplomat