The businessman accused of helping Chinese military hackers compromise US defense contractors to steal significant information has been sentenced to three years and 10 months in prison.
Su Bin, 51, a multimillionaire Chinese citizen who also went by Stephen Su and Stephen Subin, pled guilty earlier this year to US spying charges and admitted to helping his homeland make off with blueprints for Pentagon military jet components. The Vancouver resident and aviation entrepreneur said that he teamed up with hackers from his homeland to steal military secrets because he “specifically sought to profit from selling the data” to entities in China.
He is convicted of conspiring to gain unauthorized access to a protected computer and to violating the Arms Export Control Act in a hacking conspiracy that dates back to 2008 and continued to 2014. He used his aviation expertise to act as a data scout for two hackers based in China. He admitted to helping them identify people, databases and documents they could hit within US defense contracting companies; the hackers would break into a secure database and then e-mail Mr. Su a long list of files in a directory. He would identify which English-language blueprint manuals were most worth taking. The hackers allegedly had wanted schematics related to transport and fighter jets known to the Pentagon as C-17s, F-22s and F-35s.
Su had faced a maximum five-year prison sentence—it’s low because he didn’t actually carry out any hacking himself. The three years and change final result is a result of his plea deal, which presumably resulted in valuable intelligence for the US. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin said his sentence was “just punishment” for his crimes.
“These activities have serious consequences for the national security of our country and the safety of the men and women of our armed services,” Carlin said. “This prison sentence reinforces our commitment to ensure that hackers, regardless of state affiliation, are held accountable for their criminal conduct.”
Su, the owner of a company called Lode Technology, was initially arrested in Canada in July 2014, and he ultimately waived extradition and consented to come to the United States in February. Canadian immigration authorities decided not to declare Mr. Su a Chinese spy and strip him of his Canadian residency status.
Photo © Nuno Andre