The US has charged five Chinese military officials with hacking into major US companies to steal trade secrets in the first US criminal prosecutions against foreign government agents over alleged commercial cyberspying.

US attorney general Eric Holder accused the Chinese army officers of illegally accessing computers at five US companies to steal trade information and intellectual property that would give state-owned rivals in China an economic advantage in incidents of “economic espionage”.

The case represents “the first ever charges against a state actor for this type of hacking”, Mr Holder told a press conference at which the 31-count indictment against the Chinese was detailed.

“The range of trade secrets and other sensitive business information stolen in this case is significant and demands an aggressive response,” he said.

Adding that “enough is enough”, Mr Holder said the case should serve as “a wake-up call” to countries involved in commercial espionage and hacking against US companies.

Robert Anderson, the FBI’s executive assistant director in charge of cyber investigations, said that diplomatic efforts and public exposure had failed to stop this kind of spying and that this prosecution paves the way for future charges.

“This is the new normal,” he said. “This is what you’re going to see on a recurring basis.”

The companies targeted were some of the US’s biggest industrial companies involved in nuclear power, solar power and metal manufacturing: Westinghouse Electric, United States Steel, Allegheny Technologies, Alcoa and SolarWorld. The United Steelworkers union was also targeted.



‘Strategy and vulnerabilities’

Mr Holder claimed that the Chinese hackers sought information on the “strategy and vulnerabilities” of the companies in hacking that began as early as 2006.

“The alleged hacking appears to have been conducted for no reason other than to advantage state-owned companies and other interests in China at the expense of businesses here in the United States,” said Mr Holder.

The indictment, filed in a court in the heart of the US steel industry in western Pennsylvania, accuses the five alleged hackers of working for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in Shanghai, which means they are unlikely to be brought back to the US to face trial.



Computer fraud

They are accused of illegally accessing private information and damaging computers at the US companies mostly from 2010 to 2012 and of conspiracy to commit computer fraud as late as April 2014.

The alleged conspirators were named as Wang Dong, Sun Kailiang, Wen Xinyu, Huang Zhenyu and Gu Chunhui, officers of the Chinese army unit 61398.

The indictment identified Wang Dong under the pseudonyms “Jack Wang” and “UglyGorilla”; Sun Kailiang as “Jack Sun”; and Gu Chunhui as “KandyGoo”.

The head of the US justice department’s national security division, John Carlin, said the Chinese government had challenged the US to offer “hard evidence” of hacking that could stand up in court and that for the first time the US government was “exposing the faces and names behind the keyboards used to steal from American businesses”.



‘Stealing fruits of labour’

“While the men and women of our American businesses spent their business days innovating, creating and developing strategies to compete in the global marketplace, these members of unit 61398 spent their business days in Shanghai stealing the fruits of our labour,” said Mr Carlin.

In a strongly worded response, China’s foreign ministry said the US allegations were “made up” and would “damage Sino-American co-operation and mutual trust”. The Chinese government, military and associated personnel have “never engaged in online theft of trade secrets”, the statement said.

While the US has operated sweeping electronic eavesdropping, US president Barack Obama has said it has not collected intelligence to give US companies an edge over international competitors.