A group of hackers in China breached the computer defenses of America’s top business-lobbying group and gained access to everything stored on its systems, including information about its three million members, according to several people familiar with the matter.
WSJ Washington bureau chief Jerry Seib has details of a cyber attack against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by Chinese hackers in which more than 300 Internet addresses were breached. AP Photo.
The break-in at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of the boldest known infiltrations in what has become a regular confrontation between U.S. companies and Chinese hackers. The complex operation, which involved at least 300 Internet addresses, was discovered and quietly shut down in May 2010.
View Interactive
It isn’t clear how much of the compromised data was viewed by the hackers. Chamber officials say internal investigators found evidence that hackers had focused on four Chamber employees who worked on Asia policy, and that six weeks of their email had been stolen.
It is possible the hackers had access to the network for more than a year before the breach was uncovered, according to two people familiar with the Chamber’s internal investigation.
