"Our effort, from Department of Homeland Security and the FBI and the State Department, is to push back against these threats to America from China," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday. | Francisco Seco/AFP/Getty Images Financial Services Pompeo says China hacked Marriott

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed today that the Chinese government hacked Marriott and potentially stole the information of up to 500 million people.

During an interview on “Fox & Friends,” Pompeo said China was “conducting espionage and influence operations here in the United States.”


When one of the Fox program’s hosts interjected and said, “The latest one was the Marriott,” Pompeo replied, “That’s right.”

Marriott announced the hack on Nov. 30 and said the intruders had access to its Starwood chain’s reservation database since 2014. The company did not identify the attackers, but multiple news outlets subsequently reported that security researchers found links to Chinese intelligence services.

Chinese government hackers “have committed cyberattacks across the world,” Pompeo said on “Fox & Friends.”

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Also this morning, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Chinese hacking, Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said China is responsible for "over 90 percent of cyber-enabled economic espionage in the United States. Reports issued this year by the White House Office on Trade and Manufacturing, the U.S. Trade Representative and ODNI all report detailed findings on China’s role as a prime cyber-attacker and thief of American intellectual property and technology."

Those comments come one day before multiple Trump administration agencies are expected to blame China for a long-running campaign of hacks that includes the Office of Personnel Management and Anthem breaches. Both are part of what U.S. intelligence officials believe is an attempt by Beijing to amass dossiers on Americans susceptible to recruitment as double agents.

“Our effort, from Department of Homeland Security and the FBI and the State Department, is to push back against these threats to America from China,” Pompeo said.

Tim Starks contributed to this story.

