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He had flown to Amsterdam and then headed to Belgium for the first part of his vacation in Europe. But, according to US officials, he was far from being a tourist.
Xu went to pick up a US employee from GE Aviation, a specialist in aircraft engine design. The company had spent decades spending millions of dollars developing materials to make vane vanes and lighter motor housings.
Xu thought the official would disclose secrets, according to the US charge. But he did not know what to expect.
A Belgian police officer was in the process of executing an FBI arrest warrant on the pretext that he was a spy for the Chinese government. US lawyer Xu refused to comment on the case, but the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the indictment was "a complete invention".
Xu's alleged plan to steal trade secrets began in March 2017. An American employee of GE Aviation, a manufacturer of engines for commercial aircraft and military aviation, received a news e-mail. a person from the University of Aeronautics and Astronomy Nanjing, according to the indictment against Xu.
This person invited the engineer to an "exchange" with China, travel expenses being borne by the university.
In May 2017, the United States learned that it had been suggested that they prepare a good technical report on the new GE engine hardware. The official came to China and gave a speech on June 2nd.
During his stay there, he met Xu, whose real job was at the Ministry of State Security, as deputy director of a branch of Jiangsu Province, according to the indictment.
But he reportedly gave the engineer a map indicating that he was calling Qu Hui and was working in an organization that promoted science and technology. He said that it was him, Xu, who was paying the housing and meals of the engineer and that there was a $ 3,500 fee for the conversation.
O in GE Photo: Reuters
The two men have been in touch, indicates the indictment , and other documents have been sent. It became increasingly clear that the employee was delivering confidential information from the company.
In February, the engineer sent a presentation. On the front page was the GE logo and a notification that the material belonged to the company and was confidential. Xu reportedly continued to send questions.
There is an impressive exchange of messages in the impeachment process. The engineer claims that the applications involved trade secrets. In response, Xu says that they could talk about it personally and ask the engineer to copy the files from the company's computer.
By this time, GE had already discovered what was happening – the engineer, who was not indicted, cooperating with the company and the FBI investigators.
The United States says that Xu's job was to obtain data from aviation and space exploration companies in the United States and Europe. According to the indictment, he has been working with Chinese universities and institutions since 2013 to identify and search for specific engineers who know China's secrets and pbad this information on to government, academics and businesses.
According to the indictment, Xu was working for NUAA, a university affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. He is one of the best engineers in China and collaborates with companies that manufacture aircraft.
NUAA confirmed that Xu was a graduate student, but said the same thing as the government: "Our faculty contributes and legally uses intellectual property.We always respect and protect intellectual property and never support its theft."
Xu spent six months in detention until his extradition to the United States. He was charged with conspiracy, attempted economic espionage and theft of trade secrets. The trial is expected to take place next year. Xu denies everything.
The extradition of an intelligence officer for economic espionage is unprecedented, but was seen as part of a Washington initiative to further confront the Chinese.
The United States says that Xu's case is representative of China's plans: intelligence agents are working with Chinese companies to steal Western technical secrets and use them to develop their own economy.
"The Chinese pose the greatest threat to the security and interests of the United States," said Bill Evanina, a former FBI agent and director of the US Counter-Intelligence and Security Center, which coordinates US defense against spies.
The case of Xu is not the only one concerning the aviation sector. Another revealed episode reveals that weeks later, a group of intelligence agents was indicted. They would also be linked to the Jiangsu division. In this case, referring to the events that occurred in November 2013, a Chinese spy reportedly met a Chinese official from a French space exploration company having an office in Suzhou.
"I will take the horse for you tonight," said the spy, according to the indictment. He then suggested that they pretend to meet by chance in a restaurant. "So we do not have to meet in Shanghai."
"Horse" was referring to the "Trojan horse" that would be used installed on the computer of the company.
On January 25, 2014, the employee inserted a USB stick into one of the computers of the French company. "The horse was planted this morning," he said in a text message to the intelligence officer.
The following month, the company's computers contacted a Web domain controlled by Chinese hackers. This was perceived by the American agents, who informed the French. They searched the company, which began to investigate. Spyware used a flash drive to install a virus on the computers of a French company – Photo: Pixabay "title =" Spies used a USB key to install a virus on the computers of a French company – Photo: Pixabay "src =" data: image / jpeg; base64, / 9j / 4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD / 2wBDAAMCAgMCAgMDAwMEAwMEBQgFBQQEBQoHBwYIDAoMDAsKCwsNDhIQDQ4RDgsLEBYQERMUFRUVDA8XGBYUGBIUFRT / 2wBDAQMEBAUEBQkFBQkUDQsNFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBT / wgARCAARABkDASIAAhEBAxEB / 8QAGgAAAQUBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEDBAUGAv / EABcBAAMBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAECBQD / 2gAMAwEAAhADEAAAAZHVJHk1NM7DeGzSAXsnQK xAAfEAACAQIHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQIREgMEEBMUMUL // / + 2gAIAQEAAQUCVpSIootOVMscmsw67 nnC6P / xAAYEQACAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEQEQQf / aAAgBAwEBPwGXgr // xAAXEQEBAQEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARFB / 9oACAECAQE / AZnURH xAAfEAAABgEFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQIDEBEyEiAhMXH // / // 2gAIAQEABj8CwHU5GG6edbSg70krjwVewo xAAfEAEAAgEDBQAAAAAAAAAAAAABABEhMUFREIGRodH / 2gAIAQEAAT8hGeR3ioAy85uE0BluJob2AI0urb3 + // JhBXiXjp5myel0 2gAMAwEAAgADAAAAEIF wnf / EABkRAQEBAAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEAEYGh8P / aAAgBAwEBPxAk07znupjN / 8QAGREBAAIDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQAREEGh / 9oACAECAQE / ECmnXYmaYf / EACIQAQABAgYCAwAAAAAAAAAAAAERACEQMUFRYXGRobHB4f / aAAgBAQABPxB5cw3DUS1QdJ16pKUDMF9Vxa ECtKQle9qjRuuBMsLwr2EL5U7XGwB8dVzPj9wnw / ae / wD / 2Q == "/>
Spies used a USB flash drive to install a virus on their computer. But the hackers had an advantage: another computer employee of the Chinese branch of the company was working with them, say the accusations. According to the indictment, he exchanged SMS with hackers and, a few hours later, the Web domain was removed to hide them.
The United States claims that between 2010 and 2015, this group, led by a Chinese intelligence agent, had worked with Chinese officials to steal sensitive data about an engine used in commercial aircraft.
None of the defendants in China should be tried. But the indictments are part of an American strategy to pressure Beijing to inform the public about Chinese activities.
The two stories clearly show that, despite all the talk of cyber espionage, individuals still matter. People within a company can, with or without knowing it, reveal secrets. But how do the Chinese know who to watch?
On November 1, 2017, a search was conducted at the home of Ji Chaoqun, in the state of Ohio. He was born in China and went to the United States in 2013 to obtain a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chigaco. In 2016, he enlisted in the US Army as a Reservist.
The United States says that Ji's mission was to verify the biographical information of eight engineers, all American citizens born in Taiwan or China. They have all worked or recently retired from science and technology, some of them in the space exploration industry.
Seven of the eight work or had worked for US defense companies and had access to sensitive information. Ji would have tried to hide what he was doing by qualifying the documents as "two-year in-depth questions" when he sent them to Chinese contacts.
In February and May 2018, Ji met two people who claimed to have links with the Chinese intelligence services. In fact, they were FBI agents.
Ji said that he had been approached at a recruitment fair in China. Then they asked him to learn about people. A lawyer representing Ji refused to comment, but Ji has already denied all charges.
Americans have largely covered cyberattacks, but internal threats are often more dangerous than hacker attacks from abroad.
Chinese intelligence services often target people via social networking sites such as LinkedIn, says Evanina. "If you look from the intelligence point of view, it's a low-risk, high-performance initiative, you send 30,40,000 emails and you get 20, 40 people who say," I've this technology. "It is very useful for them."
A year ago, the German security services had warned that 10,000 Germans had been sought by fake profiles of headhunters, consultants and researchers who were actually intelligence agents in China.
It is believed that Chinese spies also attack British secrets, but the government did not want to talk about it publicly.
Anyone working for National security in the UK confirms that it faces the same kinds of things as in the US But the British government, even accused by the United States, has shown itself less categorical On the offensive, for the moment
It seems that the United Kingdom is ready to shout more about certain Chinese activities and that the United States is considering a new wave of indictments and charges. possible sanctions to the incontrover e of China for espionage.
"There is a long history of intellectual property theft, for example from British universities and large engineering firms, from Chinese state-related hackers," says Robert Hannigan, chairman of GCHQ, British intelligence agency, 2014 to 2017.
"Many governments try to avoid conflicts with China and, in any case, the UK does not have the same legal scope global as the foundation of indictments against China and other countries. "
Members of the British government's security zone are particularly concerned that universities are targeted for IP research and theft.
They find that they are an easy target for economic espionage thanks to people invited to China, agents traveling to the West as students and returning with intellectual property and even looking for partnerships between universities.
A large British engineering company, for example, is working on an advanced materials project with a university that also collaborates with the Chinese government. As a result, the company ensures that the parts in which they work are regularly cleaned so that there is no microphone.
Relations between China and China also pbad through the National University of Defense Technology (UNTD) Changsha, one of the best in China. Chaired by the Ministries of Defense and Education, it has links to the military and is ahead of space projects and supercomputers.
The BBC discovered that a number of UK universities listed in the database were UNTD contributors to a number of scientific articles. Many seem to be interested in space exploration or aviation.
There is no indication that these collaborations involve spying or anything unlawful, but the degree of cooperation worries those who are studying Chinese influence. "The collaboration between the United Kingdom and this university is very worrying: the British universities must have trained hundreds of scientists from this university as part of the Chinese effort to use foreign expertise in the military", says Alex Joske, researcher. who studied the subject. "At the moment, there is not much supervision of these contacts."
But there is a system to help universities avoid risk, the university technology approval program, led by the British government.
Much of the threat comes from people who are not exactly spies. "They use scientists, engineers, businessmen, they can come here, infiltrate an organization, be part of the culture, work on an important project, whether it is confidential or not, and have access to data. "
Of course, all countries have spies. The United Kingdom and the United States also spy on Chinese companies.
But Western governments say that the Chinese work differently. They say China has a broader strategy to target commercial information in order to give ammunition to its companies, which often have links to the state. What, they say, their spies do not do.
China denies being involved in a secret ploy of stealing clbadified information.
"US sanctions have undermined China's rights and interests, undermined trust between the two countries and affected their relations, and we urge the United States to put an end to these misleading comments and actions", recently said a member of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Chinese foreigner.
The Trump government is determined to deal with Chinese espionage by the strategy of indicting the Chinese, as Xu.
Other indictments related to theft of technology chips, foam and even genetically modified rice.
"I can tell you that there is still much to be done," says Bill Evanina. He added that China posed a greater threat to security than Russia.
The problem is not only that China uses espionage to develop economically, but also that the government is using its strength more and more to influence other countries.
This is certainly politically useful for Trump's leadership focuses more on China than on Russia. But if you talk to security officials, they see the urgency of the threat.
The campaign to follow a hard line of espionage is only part of a larger fight because of economic power involving trade and technology . Washington wants its allies to rank on its side.
Australia has been at the forefront of the debate about the influence of China, including politics and universities. In June, it pbaded anti-espionage laws that make crime "secret, deceptive or threatening acts designed to hinder the democratic process or provide information to other countries."
Laws include actions that do not constitute spying.
The United Kingdom has been more cautious so far. "Power, money and politics go to the East, it's the reality we have to accept," said MI6 head of the British secret service Alex Younger last month.
A government spokesman said, "We do not comment on intelligence issues or threats to us." The government is alert to the wide range of potential threats that the United Kingdom is facing. and led to a very national security seriously. "
In Washington, while people believe that it is vital to tackle this problem quickly, others fear that China has already managed to progress economically enough to establish its global influence.
Even with a more aggressive stance, some say it's too late to disrupt China's plans.
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