U.S. Employee Data Breach Tied To Chinese Intelligence

 

The Communist Chinese are tied to the computer hacking of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Newsweek reports.

 

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The Chinese hacking group suspected of stealing sensitive information about millions of current and former U.S. government employees has a different mission and organizational structure than the military hackers who have been accused of other U.S. data breaches, according to people familiar with the matter.

 

While the Chinese People's Liberation Army typically goes after defense and trade secrets, this hacking group has repeatedly accessed data that could be useful to Chinese counter-intelligence and internal stability, said two people close to the U.S. investigation. 

 

Washington has not publicly accused Beijing of orchestrating the data breach at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and China has dismissed as "irresponsible and unscientific" any suggestion that it was behind the attack.

          

Sources told Reuters that the hackers employed a rare tool to take remote control of computers, dubbed Sakula, that was also used in the data breach at U.S. health insurer Anthem Inc last year.

 

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