The Justice Department on Thursday unsealed criminal charges against two Chinese nationals accused of running a decade-long hacking campaign to steal intellectual property from companies in the United States and abroad at the direction of China’s top intelligence agency.
Zhu Hua, who goes by the online name “Godkiller,” and Zhang Shilong, are charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Officials say the pair stole sensitive data from at least 45 U.S. tech companies and government agencies. Most of the companies were not named, but the Department of Energy’s National Laboratory and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were targeted, according to the indictment.
Other companies were identified as “a maritime technology company, an oil and gas company and at least 25 other technology-related companies,” the indictment said.
In addition to the U.S., the hackers hit companies in the United States, Great Britain, Japan, Canada, Australia, Brazil, France, Switzerland and South Korea.
The two defendants pilfered the technology by targeting “managed service providers,” companies that remotely manage online data for business and governments around the world.
FBI Director Christopher Wray compared hacking an MSP to getting the master key to an apartment complex. Each MSP compromised by the defendants gave them access to dozens of companies’ trade secrets.
The two defendants are members of a hacking group known as Advanced Persistent Threat 10 or APT10.
APT10 is one of the most active hacking groups in the world. It is alleged to have hacked more than 40 computers belonging to the U.S. Navy, stealing personal data of more than 100,000 personnel.
The charges come as tensions between China and other countries continue to simmer. Canada arrested a Chinese telecommunications executive at the request of the United States on a charge related to the sanctions imposed against Iran.
Recently, the Trump administration has intensified its push to confront China over its efforts to steal American intellectual property through hacking and espionage.
“More than 90 percent of the Department’s cases alleging economic espionage over the past seven years involve China. More than two-thirds of the Department’s cases involving thefts of trade secrets are connected to China,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said Thursday.
Justice Department officials have unsealed three indictments in recent weeks detailing Chinese intelligence efforts to steal corporate secrets from U.S. technology companies.
The DOJ announcement came on the same day a federal grand jury returned an indictment on a Chinese-government owned business and three individuals for attempting to trade secrets from an American semiconductor manufacturer.
In October, the department charged two Chinese intelligence officers and several hackers with trying to steal turbofan jet engine technology from 13 companies in the U.S. and abroad from January 2010 to May 2015.
Also, in October, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment against another individual with links to the Ministry of State, accusing him of committing economic espionage.
The defendant, Yanjun Xu, allegedly attempted to get an employee of GE Aviation and other companies to reveal their trade secrets by posing as a University official. He was arrested in Belgium in April, making him the first Chinese intelligence officer to be extruded to the United States and face charges in a federal court.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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