Hanford “victim 3″ of Chinese hacking scheme

SPOKANE, Wash.-The U.S. Department of Justice announced charges against two Chinese nationals in a multi-count indictment handed up by a grand jury in the Eastern Washington District Court.

According to the DOJ, 34-year-old Li Xiaoyu and 33-year-old Dong Jiazhi not only hacked the DOE, but hacked foreign gaming companies and pharmaceutical companies, including firms working on COVID-19 research and vaccine testing.

One of the victims was the Hanford Site.

In or around March 2015, hackers accessed a web shell program at Hanford computer network and planted others with innocuous names. On March 16, 2015, hackers accessed network user accounts, including administrators.

Hackers tried to get into the system in November 2018, but were denied. However, they stole under 1GB of data from Hanford and used it to access other government contractors across the country and around the world.

Hanford and the U.S. Department of Energy has yet to issue a statement on the matter.