DoJ indicted a member of China-based hacking group behind Anthem hack

US DoJ indicted a member of sophisticated China-based hacking group for series of computer intrusions. The group is also responsible for the 2015 Health Insurer Anthem data breach.

The US Department of Justice indicted Fujie Wang (32), a member of sophisticated Chinese hacking group that breached at several US companies, including the health insurer Anthem Inc. back in 2015.

“A federal grand jury returned an indictment unsealed today in Indianapolis, Indiana, charging a Chinese national as part of an extremely sophisticated hacking group operating in China and targeting large businesses in the United States, including a computer intrusion and data breach of Indianapolis-based health insurer Anthem Inc. (Anthem). ” reads the press release published by DoJ.

Starting from February 2014, Fujie Wang and other members of the hacking group, including another Chinese individual charged as John Doe, carried out a series of spear-phishing attacks on U.S.-based organizations.

Wang and Doe are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and related activity in relation to computers and identity theft, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and two substantive counts of intentional damage to a protected computer.

Then defendants installed malware and tools on the compromised systems to further compromise the computer networks of the victim businesses.

Once inside a target company’s network, they stole data of interest, including personally identifiable information (PII) and confidential business information.

The group targeted at least four US companies between February 2014 and January 2015, court documents only named Anthem as one of the victims.

“The allegations in the indictment unsealed today outline the activities of a brazen China-based computer hacking group that committed one of the worst data breaches in history,” said Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski. “These defendants allegedly attacked U.S. businesses operating in four distinct industry sectors, and violated the privacy of over 78 million people by stealing their PII. The Department of Justice and our law enforcement partners are committed to protecting PII, and will aggressively prosecute perpetrators of hacking schemes like this, wherever they occur.”

Wang is alleged to have controlled two domain names connected to the cyber attacks, one of which was associated with a backdoor used in the intrusion of the Victim Business 1’s network. The other domain name was associated by Wang with a server used to create an email account used to conduct spearfishing attacks against employees of Victim Business 3.

The indictment doesn’t link the Chinese hacking crew with China-linked APT groups.

Wang is currently on the FBI’s Most Wanted Cyber list and is still at large.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Chinese hackers, Anthem)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.