China says it has seized hackers from US officials database

China is said to have informed the United States that it has arrested several hackers who are believed to be behind the theft of data from millions of American officials. The arrests are said to have taken place in September.

They took place just before a visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping, writes The Washington Post. The newspaper claims to have heard from anonymous government officials that China informed the US about the arrests. It is still unclear who it is and what the motive of the hackers was. The Chinese authorities would not have informed the Americans, but that the perpetrators are being charged. The Chinese state media also called the hack a criminal act “other than a state-sponsored attack as the US initially suspected”.

In early June, the hack of the systems of the Office of Personnel Management, the human resources division of the US government, became known. The hack was discovered internally in April of this year. It was the largest hack of US government services to date in terms of personal data: in total it involved data of almost 22 million civil servants and former government officials.

Links to the Chinese government were thought of within government and security circles because the attack showed typical characteristics of government espionage. In the months that followed, China and the US pledged each other to refrain from economic espionage, a pledge reiterated by many more states, including Germany and France, at the G20 summit in November. According to The Washington Post, China was prepared to take action after Obama threatened economic sanctions against Chinese companies that could benefit from hacks by American companies.