WASHINGTON — The Justice Department accused a pair of Chinese hackers on Tuesday of targeting vaccine development on behalf of the country’s intelligence service as part of a broader yearslong campaign of global cybertheft aimed at industries such as defense contractors, high-end manufacturing and solar energy companies. Justice Department officials labeled the suspects, Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi, as a blended threat who sometimes worked on behalf of China’s spy services and sometimes to enrich themselves. The officials said that an indictment secured against them this month and unsealed on Tuesday was the first to target such a threat. United States government officials said that the suspects had previously stolen information about other Chinese intelligence targets like human rights activists and, at the behest of the Ministry of State Security spy service, shifted focus this year to trying to acquire coronavirus vaccine research. The Justice Department said that China’s covert activity could potentially set back vaccine research efforts.

Source: New York Times July 21, 2020 17:08 UTC