In 2014, the insurance company Anthem was hacked, resulting in millions of records being compromised. On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced that two hackers from China are charged with the attack on Anthem and several other American companies.
America has been trying for some time to counter attacks from China.
A federal panel in Indianapolis, where Anthem is headquartered, charged 32-year-old Fujie Wang from China, and another person they are calling John Doe (as his identity is unknown) with engaging in fraud and attempting to cause damage to a protected computer.
According to the charges, the two hackers attacked Anthem and three other companies. In the case of Anthem, the perpetrators sent phishing emails to the company's employees starting on February 18, 2014. A month later, the hackers managed to gain access to the company's systems, allowing them to steal files and personal data.
By early 2015, hackers had access to about 80 million records from the company. The data included emails, social security numbers, dates of birth, and addresses. It also included information about the employment and income of both employees and customers. Anthem's CEO was also a victim.
Anthem revealed the attack a year later, in February 2015 , and since then, attention has been focused on Chinese spies.
China has previously spied on America to learn its trade secrets, but with the attack on Anthem and the Office of Personnel Management four months later, it appeared that its new target was the personal data of Americans, especially government employees.
After that, other companies also revealed data breaches. Hackers had also targeted other insurance companies, airlines, hotels, and the well-known company Equifax.
The stolen data was never made available on the Dark Web, which reinforces the hypothesis that the hackers carried out the attacks with the aim of espionage.
This would give Chinese authorities the ability to view, for example, hotel reservations to track the movements of specific individuals or use data to blackmail the holders.
China has been increasingly developing its spy network in recent years, and these attacks are part of this.
According to the Department of Justice, Mr. Wang and John Doe were part of a Chinese hacking group responsible for one of the largest data breaches in history.
However, neither the court nor the security firm investigating the case were able to link the hackers to the Chinese government or military.
This is one of the largest data breaches, as the attack affected the insurance company Anthem and millions of American citizens.
