Pair charged with hacking vaccine secrets

Hackers working with the Chinese government targeted firms developing vaccines for the coronavirus and stole hundreds of millions of dollars worth of intellectual property and trade secrets from companies across the world, the US Justice Department claimed as it announced criminal charges.

The indictment does not accuse the two Chinese defendants of actually obtaining the coronavirus research.

They are alleged to have researched vulnerabilities in the computer networks of biotech firms and diagnostic companies that were developing vaccines and testing kits and researching anti-viral drugs.

The indictment includes trade secret theft and wire fraud conspiracy charges against the hackers - former classmates at an electrical engineering college who prosecutors say worked together for more than a decade targeting high-tech companies in more than 10 countries.

Prosecutors say the hackers, identified as Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi, stole information not only for their personal profit but also research and technology that they knew would be of value to the Chinese government.

In some instances, the indictment says, they provided an officer for a Chinese intelligence service with e-mail accounts and passwords belonging to clergymen, dissidents and pro-democracy activists who could then be targeted.

The officer gave help of his own, providing malicious software.

The two defendants are not in custody, and federal officials conceded they were not likely to step foot in an American courtroom.

But the indictment carries important symbolic and deterrence value for the Justice Department, which decided that publicly calling out the behavior was more worthwhile than waiting for the unlikely scenario in which the defendants would travel to the US and risk arrest.

The alleged hacking began more than 10 years ago, with targets including pharmaceutical, solar energy and medical device companies but also political dissidents, activists and clergy in the United States, China and Hong Kong, federal authorities said.

Last week authorities in the US, Canada and Britain accused a hacking group with links to Russian intelligence of trying to target research on the disease, which has killed more than 140,000 people in the United States and more than 600,000 worldwide.

ASSOCIATED PRESS