US and its allies accuse China of state sponsored massive global cybercrimes

US President Joe Biden's administration has finally come out publicly against China's involvement in cybercrimes accusing Beijing of running a massive global operation of state-sponsored activities causing billions of dollars of losses to victims. In a show of solidarity indicating the serious global repercussions, all 30 NATO allies and European Union, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan joined in indicting China.

 

US Justice Department charged three Chinese officials of running the hacking operation against systems around the world looking for, among other things, information on dangerous diseases like Ebola. Such information about diseases could be used in biological warfare or for creating diseases like Covid-19.

 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US and its allies have formally confirmed that China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) used



vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server in a massive cyber espionage operation that indiscriminately compromised thousands of computers and networks, mostly belonging to private sector victims. 

He said that they are holding China accountable for its pattern of irresponsible, disruptive, and destabilising behaviour in cyberspace, which poses a major threat to our economic and national security.

Blinken accused the China's Ministry of State Security of promoting "an ecosystem of criminal contract hackers who carry out both state-sponsored activities and cybercrime for their own financial gain. He said these contract hackers cost governments and businesses billions of dollars in stolen intellectual property, ransom payments, and cyber security mitigation efforts, all while Chinese government has them on its payroll.