Monday, December 30, 2019

How Chinese Hackers Uncovered America's Undercover Spies

Illustration: Shonagh Rae for Yahoo News

Yahoo News: 'Shattered': Inside the secret battle to save America's undercover spies in the digital age

When hackers began slipping into computer systems at the Office of Personnel Management in the spring of 2014, no one inside that federal agency could have predicted the potential scale and magnitude of the damage. Over the next six months, those hackers — later identified as working for the Chinese government — stole data on nearly 22 million former and current American civil servants, including intelligence officials.

The data breach, which included fingerprints, personnel records and security clearance background information, shook the intelligence community to its core. Among the hacked information’s other uses, Beijing had acquired a potential way to identify large numbers of undercover spies working for the U.S. government. The fallout from the hack was intense, with the CIA reportedly pulling its officers out of China. (The director of national intelligence later denied this withdrawal.)

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WNU Editor:Bottom line. Being undercover is going to be next to impossible in the digital age.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You do not necessarily need to hack to discover terrorists or spies. The Germans knew how to do this, but they stopped, because THEY ARE A BUNCH OF PUSSIES. Nothing new. Merkel is just the final nail in the coffin of the German nation.