Chinese ‘corporate hackers’ accused of attacking US law firms Report in South China Morning Post, Dec 28, 2016

Three Chinese hackers made more than US$4 million in illicit profits after breaking into the servers of top corporate law firms in New York, according to US judicial authorities.
One has been arrested and charges laid.
The three targeted at least seven major international law firms that had been retained by companies to advise on deals and successfully got into the email accounts of senior lawyers at two of the firms, according to the indictment unsealed on Tuesday.
They profited on deals and speculation involving the drug maker Intermune, chipmaker Intel Corp and business services company Pitney Bowes. The US Securities and Exchange Commission is also suing and is seeking an asset freeze.
The case places law firms among the widening group of targets for cybercriminals seeking to profit from insider information. The US broke up an international ring of hackers last year who allegedly infiltrated the computer servers of PRNewswire Association, Market wired and Business Wire and stole market moving press releases before they were published.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said the group, which included Ukrainians and a Georgian, made more than US$100 million from trading on the information.
“This case of cyber meets securities fraud should serve as a wake-up call for law firms around the world,” said Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara in a statement.
The three men, Iat Hong and Chin Hung, 50, from Macau, and Bo Zheng, 30, from mainland China, worked at a robotics company that was started by Zheng, according to the government.
Hong, 26, was arrested in Hong Kong on Christmas Day and is awaiting extradition. The exchange commission is also seeking to freeze an account registered in Hong’s mother’s name.
In addition to the law firms, they also hacked other robotics companies, the authorities said. They allegedly stole schematic designs of a robot vacuum cleaner made by a US company.
The three generally allegedly used the same tactics to get the information. They would get the log-in credentials of an employee and place malware on a server that allowed them to access the emails of key people at the firms and companies, according to the indictment.
In a one-day period in 2014, they allegedly took 10 gigabytes of confidential data from one law firm’s server
They were not always successful, according to the authorities. During one six-month period in 2015, the three men allegedly tried on more than 100,000 occasions to break into the networks of five law firms.
The law firms were not identified in the complaints.
The Wall Street Journal reported in March that Cravath Swaine & Moore and Weil Gotshal & Manges were among the targeted law firms. Amy Fantini, a Weil, Gotshal & Manges spokeswoman, declined to comment on the charges. Cravath Swaine & Moore did not respond to a request for comment.
The three men allegedly bought shares of Intermune based on the information gleaned from the hacked data.
Although the deal was not closed, they still made money as shares rose on media reports that the company was seeking a tie-up, according to the indictment. Intermune was ultimately purchased by Roche. Cravath advised Intermune on the deal.
In another deal, the group allegedly bought shares in chipmaker Altera Corp after Intel had retained one of the law firms to advise on an acquisition.
They scored US$1.4 million in profits on the trade amid media reports of the pending deal and sold their shares before it was publicly announced, according to the indictment. Weil Gotshal was one of the law firms advising Intel on the deal.
Using information gleaned from a second law firm, the trio also allegedly bought shares of Borderfree, an online commerce site that was an acquisition target of Pitney Bowes.
They made a profit of US$841,000 on the trades after the deal was announced on May 18, 2015, according to the indictment.
Prior to the Borderfree takeover, Hong and Chin bought so much of the company’s stock that on certain days the two accounted for 25 per cent or more of the company’s trading volume, according to the exchange commission complaint.http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2057608/chinese-corporate-hackers-accused-attacking-us-law