This content was created by Robert Siciliano. This content was uploaded by Robert Siciliano. This is a YouTube news segment titled "Al Jazeera: Chinese hacking federal employees @HotspotShield" (posted July 10, 2014). The excerpt is a multi‑speaker Al Jazeera broadcast reporting on a large Office of Personnel Management data breach affecting tens of thousands of U.S. government employees, with U.S. officials blaming Chinese hackers. It includes on‑air discussion among anchors and correspondents (speakers labeled A–E, with a correspondent named John Terence/John Terry and an anchor referred to as Mike), references to DOJ indictments of a Chinese military unit (61398), statements from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, and contextual notes about Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to China.
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Serious government data breach involving tens of thousands of people, and U.S. officials are blaming Chinese hackers for it. They say they broke into government networks and targeted workers applying for high-level security clearances. John Terence here with more. And John, this is a very strong allegation.
You know, Mike, this is the scourge of our modern era. We are led to believe this is teams of people, not individual geeks, but teams of people all over the world. They could be anywhere hacking into government institutions and into US corporations to get information. Now, the finger is being pointed on this occasion very firmly at the Chinese, and the evidence seems to suggest that whoever did this got awfully close to some very sensitive information indeed.
Alarms first rang back in March at the Office of Personnel Management. Hackers breached a database containing the private files of tens of thousands of US government workers. It looks like the work of Chinese hackers. Media reports quoting an off-the-record government source saying there's no evidence so far anything was stolen. Cybersecurity experts say hackers usually target government or corporate workers over many weeks until finally an employee accidentally clicks on a link they ought not to, and that's it, the bad guys are in.
Chances are they got far, and when you go after the those that are requesting high-security clearance. You're going after those who have access to the keys of the kingdom. That is the, uh, best possible data breach that could occur for somebody who's looking for top-secret information.
China's been waging a lengthy cyber campaign to steal data from U.S. government departments and major corporations. Both sides regularly accuse each other of spying. In May, the Department of Justice indicted 5 hackers from Chinese military unit 61398 on charges they stole data from US corporations. It's doubtful they'll ever appear in a US court, but the point is well made. The latest revelation about stolen data came as Secretary of State John Kerry was actually in China discussing economic and security issues.
The loss of intellectual property through cyber has a chilling effect on innovation and investment. Incidents of cyber theft have harmed our businesses and threatened our nation's competitiveness. And we had a frank exchange on cyber issues at our Strategic Security Dialogue, and we both agree it is important to continue discussions in this area.
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Beijing accused media and cybersecurity firms here of trying to cast China as a cyber threat, adding they've never been able to present sufficient evidence. Now, the question is, are we doing it to them?
And my reporting leads me to report to you that the answer is probably we are, but not to the extent that it's coming the other way, because we have all the information that the Chinese allegedly want. They have very little to lose by doing this.
