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A Chinese national was arrested at the Los Angeles airport due to hacking charges.
The suspect was accused of having a rare malware used to hack into the database of different organizations. The authorities said that the suspect is only one of many hackers suspected to have used the malware.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Chinese national is a teacher who has expertise in computer network security and computer programming. The FBI believes that he was the one who provided the malware to the men who executed the hacking on some US companies.
The same malware has been linked to the cybercrime committed against the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in 2015. The OPM hacking is considered one of the worst cybercrimes committed against the country. Using the malware, the hackers were able to steal people’s financial, personal, and employment records. Millions of people were affected by the attack.
US officials suspected that the previous hacking was done by the Chinese government, but these suspicions have not been proven.
In addition to the OPM hacking, other hacking incidents have also put the relationship of the United States and China on the rocks.
In 2014, five officers from the Chinese military were accused of hacking and stealing information from US companies that deal with steel and solar and nuclear technologies. In addition, the United States also suspected hackers from China of hacking a US anti-missile defense system in South Korea. The defense system was established as a way to detect oncoming threats. However, the Chinese government released a statement saying that it does not support any hacker activities.