Chinese National Arrested for 2015 Hack of the OPM
Posted by: Timothy Weaver on 08/25/2017 11:07 AM
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Yu Pingan, a 36-year-old from Shanghai, has been charged by the FBI as being the cyber-criminal behind the hack of government databases. The personal information of 20 million federal workers was stolen from the Office of Personnel Management in 2015.
The FBI picked up Pingan, who goes by the online handle of "GoldSun", when he landed in Los Angeles to attend a conference.
Between 2012 and 2014, Pingan was believed to have distributed the "rarely-used Sakula malware" against numerous companies.
At the time of the OPM hack, James Clapper, the national intelligence director, put the blame on Beijing, "the leading suspect."
An affidavit supplied by an investigator stated: "seized communications show that Yu was warned that he could get in trouble for supplying malicious software and, in particular, that he could get in trouble with the FBI for his involvement in compromising US computer networks."
The arrest comes on the heels of another high profile arrest. British computer security researcher Marcus Hutchins was arrested for creating malware to attack banks.
Source: Security Week
The FBI picked up Pingan, who goes by the online handle of "GoldSun", when he landed in Los Angeles to attend a conference.Between 2012 and 2014, Pingan was believed to have distributed the "rarely-used Sakula malware" against numerous companies.
At the time of the OPM hack, James Clapper, the national intelligence director, put the blame on Beijing, "the leading suspect."
An affidavit supplied by an investigator stated: "seized communications show that Yu was warned that he could get in trouble for supplying malicious software and, in particular, that he could get in trouble with the FBI for his involvement in compromising US computer networks."
The arrest comes on the heels of another high profile arrest. British computer security researcher Marcus Hutchins was arrested for creating malware to attack banks.
Source: Security Week
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