The Justice Department announced charges on Monday against four members of China’s military on suspicion of hacking into Equifax, one of the nation’s largest credit reporting agencies, and stealing trade secrets and the personal data of about 145 million Americans in 2017.
“This was a deliberate and sweeping intrusion into the private information of the American people,” Attorney General William P. Barr said.
The indictment suggests the hack was part of a series of major of big data thefts organized by the People’s Liberation Army and Chinese intelligence agencies.
The charges underscored China’s quest to obtain the personal data of Americans
