Government hackers in China have breached a U.S. Navy contractor’s computers to steal a collection of sensitive data related to the service branch’s submarines and other undersea weaponry, The Washington Post reported Friday.
U.S. officials said China’s ministry of state security that oversees the Asian country’s foreign intelligence and counterintelligence operations performed the breaches between January and February and targeted 614 gigabytes of data associated with the Sea Dragon project.
The threat actors also stole development plans for an anti-ship supersonic missile on U.S. submarines, sensor and signals data, electronic warfare library of the service’s submarine development unit and submarine radio room data stored in computers of a contractor that works for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, R.I.
Officials noted the FBI helps the Navy as the military branch leads the investigation into the cyber incident.
The report said Defense Secretary James Mattis has asked the office of the Defense Department’s inspector general to evaluate contractor-related cyber issues and that DoD’s damage assessment management office has started to review the data breach’s impact.