Chinese businessman gets nearly 4 years in US hacking case

A businessman from China who in March pleaded guilty to conspiring to hack the computer networks of companies such as Boeing as well as other defense contractors in the USA was sentenced to nearly four years of prison on Wednesday said prosecutors.

In March, Su Bin, 51, admitted to working with hackers from the Chinese military in order to infiltrate United States defense companies and obtain top-secret military information from 2009 through 2014.

Also known as “Stephen Su” and “Steven Subin”, the Chinese national was arrested in 2014 for his role, which also included telling co-conspirators – believed to be military officers in China – who the best marks were, which files needed to be stolen and why the information was valuable to China’s military and government.

The sentence was announced by US District Judge Christina Snyder of the Central District of California.

A Chinese national was sentenced Wednesday in Los Angeles to three years and 10 months behind bars for plotting to hack Boeing Co.in order to steal trade secrets involving the C-17 military cargo transport. Bin, 51, had faced up to 30 years in prison before pleading guilty in March to a federal charge of conspiracy to unlawfully access computers in the United States. It involved military officers from China hacking into computer networks of major American defence contractors to steal sensitive military aircraft data.

A criminal complaint filed in 2014 and subsequent indictments filed in Los Angeles charged Su, a China-based businessman in the aviation and aerospace fields, for his role in the criminal conspiracy to steal military technical data, including data relating to the C-17 strategic transport aircraft and certain fighter jets produced for the USA military.

When charges against Su were first announced in 2014, cybersecurity expert Jeffrey Carr said his arrest warrant was the first ever issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation against a foreigner accused of cyberespionage. When the computers were hacked, China sent Su directory file listings and folders that had been accessed. Su also translated documents from English to Chinese.

From 2008 through 2014, Su communicated with hackers in China and told them which individuals and entities they should attempt to infiltrate. He said he did so because he wanted to profit from selling the information that was taken.

The case was investigated by the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office’s Cyber Division with assistance from the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Meanwhile, China has accused the US government of its own hacking campaign against China.