A yearlong investigation into cyberattacks on U.S. military contractors for U.S. Transportation Command found that 50 such incidents occurred over the 12 months beginning June 1, 2012.
“These peacetime intrusions into the networks of key defense contractors are more evidence of China’s aggressive actions in cyberspace,” Sen. Carl Levin, the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman from Michigan, said in a statement released with the report on Wednesday.
The committee’s report found that at least 20 of the attacks were successful in achieving China’s objective, and of those 20, Transcom initially only caught two, Reuters reported Wednesday.
U.S. military personnel were said to be mostly in the dark about the security breaches due to gaps in reporting requirements of its contractors, the report concluded, Reuters reported.
In June, Canadian mounties arrested a Chinese man who the FBI believes broke into Boeing and other military contractors in Europe. Su Bin, formerly of the Chinese aviation firm Lode Technologies, is accused of stealing sensitive data on the United States’ F-22 and F-35 fighter jets, as well as Boeing’s C-17 cargo plane.
A total of 32 projects are thought to have been compromised by the suspected Chinese hacker and his team, including 220MB relating to the F-22. The FBI believes 630,000 digital files relating to the C-17 cargo plane were stolen, amounting to 65GB.
SEE ALSO: FBI: Chinese hacker accessed gold mine of data on F-22, F-35 and 32 U.S. military projects
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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