Chinese Hackers Collected Extensive Data on US Citizens and Officials, Secret Documents Reveal

Washington DC. Secret intelligence documents released by the Trump administration on Thursday claimed that Chinese hackers have collected extensive information about American citizens and government officials.

Although the released documents mention cyber espionage by China, they do not present evidence of direct cyber attacks on the US elections to influence the outcome.

According to the documents, Chinese hackers attempted to monitor the email accounts of staff related to the 2020 election campaign of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden. One intelligence report mentions that a Chinese group mapped the campaign-related network, preparing for further cyber access in the future.

Other reports mention that hackers associated with Chinese government agencies downloaded voter registration details from various US states. Some of these details were publicly available. However, the documents do not mention evidence that China directly interfered in the elections or conducted targeted campaigns against voters using these statistics.

Intelligence analysis indicated the possibility that the collected personal details could be used in the future for cyber espionage, network intrusion, or election influence campaigns. However, the report states that the actual purpose of collecting such details is unclear.

These documents present a picture of Chinese intelligence agencies making long-term efforts to collect the personal and digital information of millions of American citizens. US officials have previously warned that a vast amount of personal data of American citizens has reached China following major cyber attacks on government agencies, healthcare providers, and other organizations, with American citizens' data being compromised.