
Before It Was Hacked, Equifax Had a Different Fear: Chinese Spying - propman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/before-it-was-hacked-equifax-had-a-different-fear-chinese-spying-1536768305
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jstarfish
The article is about Equifax, but based on the histories and subsequent
employment of other suspect individuals they are far from the only target. Any
FI or related should be concerned.

The common goal seems to be to get their foot in the door within a subset of
3-5 American financial verticals (the "b-b-but I just work in marketing!"
excuse as an _obscenely_ common insider position that doesn't attract any
scrutiny at all, unlike someone working in engineering or R&D. Seriously-- you
want to find the spies in your company? Start with marketing), exfiltrate
everything they can access and retreat to China for a cushy job and enjoyment
of immunity against extradition. By the time the target catches on and law
enforcement gets spun up, they've already finished their tour of duty with two
to three other companies and are on a plane halfway across the Pacific.

It's hard to do anything about it without either implementing literal racist
policies or comprehensively overhauling an entire industry's security posture,
but it is what it is.

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opportune
Special treatment against specific nations isn’t necessarily racist (depends
on motives). I don’t think treating Chinese immigrants differently wrt private
business information is racist, as long as the same rules _don 't_ apply to
ethnically Chinese US citizens

~~~
paradite
I am not sure why this comment with such blatant discrimination against
nationality is not immediately down-voted or flagged.

This is the same line of argument as the Muslim ban.

~~~
stretchwithme
Not quite. The so-called Muslim ban involved countries may have little ability
to discern who's who in their own country. Most Muslim nations did not fit
this criterion.

But others actively try to place spies in other countries. It's not wise to
treat them as we treat allies, especially given the way they treat their own
minorities and political dissidents and neighbors and debtors.

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wemdyjreichert
Wow. China holding over 1mm Muslims in "re-education" camps, forcing them to
eat pork and drink alcohol. China steals everyone's IP and knocks it off.
China bullies the Philippines, a relatively poor country, out of some natural
resources that might actually help it. Now China tries to steal the
information of hundreds of millions of Americans. And today, the US proposed
trade talks with China, rolling over for its money. Economic pressure stopped
the Soviet Union, and we should try it on China too. Money is the only safe
method of pressuring China into ending it's atrocities. We should use it.

~~~
dis-sys
> Money is the only safe method of pressuring China into ending it's
> atrocities. We should use it.

surely your congress can double the debt ceiling to borrow another 22 trillion
USD.

[http://www.usdebtclock.org/](http://www.usdebtclock.org/)

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bmurray7jhu
Some have suspected that a state actor may have been behind the breach, given
the sophistication of the attack and the lack of reporting about fraudsters
using the stolen data.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-09-29/the-
equif...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-09-29/the-equifax-hack-
has-all-the-hallmarks-of-state-sponsored-pros)

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394549
Paywall bypass: [http://archive.is/Visq4](http://archive.is/Visq4)

~~~
mk926
thanks

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jacquesm
The same goes for every other company in that line of business, in the US as
well as in Europe. The data in their databases has immense value for state
actors and allows them to help identify those that could be easily
compromised.

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chris_wot
Didn't seem to make them tighten their security any.

~~~
bdamm
Exactly; seems like they fell prey to a sort of decision paralysis (perhaps
due to revenue lost in implementing protection). A lot of companies are having
this problem. Regulation is inevitable & required.

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bryanrasmussen
I guess they must have had really good security protocols in place if they
were worried about being hacked by state actors.

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creaghpatr
I wonder if this has to do with Jack Ma stepping down?

~~~
beauzero
Curious...can you elaborate?

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kevin_thibedeau
It is very suspicious that someone as motivated as Ma would just up and quit
on his baby at such a young age. It is not outside the realm of possibility
that he stepped over a party line and is being forced to retire as punishment.

~~~
azurezyq
Ha, you may need to read more about him. Jack has been doing hand-overs for a
long period (longer than 5 years actually). The personality of him is more
close to Larry Page rather than Elon Musk. He seems to like doing less ground-
crunching management, focusing on long-term visionary things. And for the last
few years he even not spoke often publicly for Alibaba and his social media
account is full of NGO activities. Maybe it's just time for a new journey.

Also Jack IS the god in Alibaba forever, no one can really change that.

~~~
creaghpatr
In fact, I have read his book. I'm not suggesting he is a part of some
conspiracy. But it would be irresponsible to not notice one of the top 10
biggest CEOs of recent history stepping down at a noticeably young age within
a week of one of his cornerstone companies being implicated in a breach of one
of the largest owners of American financial data.

>Also Jack IS the god in Alibaba forever, no one can really change that.

Cmon, man.

