Category Archives: john demers

Equifax indictment shows Chinese hackers can’t hide, DOJ official says

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Chinese hackers took pains to cover their fingerprints in allegedly hacking credit monitoring agency Equifax in 2017, but a senior Department of Justice official says an indictment unsealed earlier this month shows the smokescreen didn’t work. “They’re always going to try to make our job harder,” John Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security, said Monday at San Francisco CyberTalks presented by CyberScoop. “And they’re also going to try to give themselves a basis to deny what it is I think that we’re proving in these cases.” The charges against four officials in China’s People’s Liberation Army for allegedly stealing data on some 145 million Americans from Equifax show just how determined the hackers were in infiltrating a U.S. company (China’s foreign ministry rejected the allegations). The hackers routed their internet traffic through servers in nearly 20 countries, wiping the computer logs along the way in a bid to […]

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Feds are lining up more indictments related to Chinese cyber-activity, officials say

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U.S. prosecutors are preparing to issue new charges against Chinese nationals related to alleged hacking and insider threats at U.S. organizations, senior Department of Justice officials said Thursday. “Chinese theft by hacking has been prominent,” Attorney General William Barr said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. “Those actions by China are continuing, and you should expect more indictments and prosecutions in the future.” It is unclear when prosecutors will issue the next indictment related to Chinese activity. Asked when that would happen, John Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security, would only say “soon.” “I think you’ll see more cyber-related indictments and you’ll see more of the insider indictments that, more recently, have actually … dominated the number of indictments we’ve brought,” Demers told reporters, referring to cases in which an employee of a U.S. company is coopted into stealing sensitive data. The Chinese […]

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Americans still vulnerable to hack-and-leak tactics, DOJ official says

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As the 2020 election campaigning kicks into high gear, a senior Department of Justice official says he worries that Americans are still vulnerable to foreign hack-and-leak operations that are intended to disrupt democratic processes. “One of the things that I am concerned about is the hacking-and-dumping activity that occurred in 2016,” John Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security, said Friday. He was referring to Russian military officers’ hacking of email servers used by Democratic political organizations, and the selective leaking of those emails to the public. Despite a lot of progress on election security since Russian interference in 2016, the personal email accounts used by political campaigns are still a weak link, Demers said at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. “It really is dependent on their cyber hygiene practices…and not clicking on that wrong email,” Demers said. “What the Russians did in 2016 in terms of the […]

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Justice official: U.S. private and public sectors face the same Chinese spying tactics

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Chinese spies are trying the same tactics to steal intellectual property from U.S. companies as they use to cultivate assets from U.S. national security circles, a top Department of Justice official has warned the private sector. Chinese intelligence officers have looked to recruit employees at U.S. companies and use that foothold to steal trade secrets in sophisticated operations, according to John Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security. Intelligence agencies, companies and research institutes in China are also coordinating deeply to pinpoint the data they want, Demers said Thursday at CyberTalks in Washington, D.C. “[C]learly, I think our cases reflect an increased focus by the [Chinese] intelligence services to do this kind of intellectual property collection,” Demers said, referring to cyber-enabled theft. The department last year tapped Demers to lead a new task force dedicated to combatting alleged Chinese economic espionage. Under the initiative, FBI officials are reaching out universities to warn them of the risk of intellectual property theft, while prosecutors are […]

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As China tensions mount, U.S. officials outline efforts to combat economic espionage

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In congressional testimony Wednesday, U.S. officials described the vast scope of alleged Chinese theft of American intellectual property and outlined ongoing efforts to counter such threats amid a dispute with Beijing. From 2011 to 2018, more than 90 percent of Justice Department cases claiming economic espionage by a state or for its benefit involved China, Assistant Attorney General John Demers said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. “The [Chinese] playbook is simple: rob, replicate, and replace,” Demers said, describing Beijing’s alleged efforts to build technology-rich companies through stolen American know-how. China is “the most severe counterintelligence threat facing our country today,” said Bill Priestap, assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. The hearing comes at a fraught time for U.S.-China relations on technology, trade, and cybersecurity issues. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleged during an interview Wednesday with Fox News that China is responsible for a data breach at Marriott that exposed personal […]

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