Chinese state hackers accused of stealing US 'turbofan' engine intellectual property

Another day another intellectual property theft claim

Ten Chinese nationals have been charged with intellectual property theft by the US Department of Justice (DoJ), with the DoJ claiming that two of the alleged hackers were Chinese intelligence officers.

The indictment claims that the group cracked the IT systems of an unnamed French company that was working with a US counterpart, and pilfered the intellectual property of a turbofan jet engine for use in large commercial aircraft.

"From at least January 2010 to May 2015, JSSD [Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security] intelligence officers and their team of hackers, including Zhang Zhang-Gui, Liu Chunliang, Gao Hong Kun, Zhuang Xiaowei, and Ma Zhiqi, focused on the theft of technology underlying a turbofan engine used in US and European commercial airliners," the DoJ claims.

"This engine was being developed through a partnership between a French aerospace manufacturer with an office in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, China and a company based in the United States."

The DoJ claims that the group was assisted by insiders at the French company, working inside its Chinese office: "Members of the conspiracy, assisted and enabled by JSSD-recruited insiders Gu Gen and Tian Xi, hacked the French aerospace manufacturer.

"The hackers also conducted intrusions into other companies that manufactured parts for the turbofan jet engine, including aerospace companies based in Arizona, Massachusetts and Oregon.

"At the time of the intrusions, a Chinese state-owned aerospace company was working to develop a comparable engine for use in commercial aircraft manufactured in China and elsewhere."

However, there are major question marks over whether the US authorities will be able to bring the ten people they believe is responsible to justice. That, though, hasn't deterred US authorities.

"For the third time since only September, the National Security Division, with its US Attorney partners, has brought charges against Chinese intelligence officers from the JSSD and those working at their direction and control for stealing American intellectual property," said John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security.

"This is just the beginning. Together with our federal partners, we will redouble our efforts to safeguard America's ingenuity and investment."

"State-sponsored hacking is a direct threat to our national security. This action is yet another example of criminal efforts by the MSS to facilitate the theft of private data for China's commercial gain," added US Attorney Adam Braverman.

"The concerted effort to steal, rather than simply purchase, commercially available products should offend every company that invests talent, energy, and shareholder money into the development of products."

The threat of intellectual property theft in China is far from new, of course. When Airbus, for example, was designing the A380 super-jumbo, it built-in security as part of the process.

Pulling in engineering companies from all over the world to contribute, Airbus categorised potential suppliers in terms of their security, which included a visit from IT security specialists to audit them before on-boarding them to the Airbus extranet.

IT security failings are, increasingly, costing CISOs, CIOs and CEOs their jobs.

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