Su Bin, a 51-year-old Chinese businessman, pleaded guilty in March to being involved in an attempt to illegally access the network of Boeing and other important contractors for the United States military.
Su, also known as Stephen Su or Stephen Subin, was allegedly part of the operation that stole sensitive military information that included data on the C-17 transport aircraft and plans for the F-22 and F-35 fighter jets used by the United States.
Su has now charged with a prison term of 46 months by the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, along with a fine of $10,000. The government of China has denied being involved in the hacking scheme, but U.S. national security assistant attorney general John Carlin implicated military hackers from the Asian country in the case.
According to Carlin, Su provided assistance to hackers from the Chinese military, specifically the People's Liberation Army Air Force, to illegally gain access to and extract designs for military aircraft.
Su, along with two unnamed individuals, were said to be planning to sell the data to companies in China for financial gain. Su's involvement in the hacking scheme was guiding his colleagues to the people, companies and technology that will be the target for the security breaches. Once his co-conspirators are able to hack into the systems, Su will tell them the files that would be stolen, and he would then translate the contents of the files into Chinese.
Su and his colleagues also created reports on the information that was acquired through their hacking methods, which included the estimated value of the stolen data and the parties that would be the final beneficiaries.
Lu Kang, the spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, reiterated that the country's government opposes and penalizes all forms of hacking, adding that the case against Chinese soldiers involved in acquiring secrets from the United States military acted on hearsay and comes with ulterior motives.
The news of Su's imprisonment comes less than a month after reports that Chinese cyberattacks on United States targets have been declining.
According to a report by cybersecurity firm FireEye, hacking attacks that have been mostly attributed to black hat hackers from China have decreased by 90 percent over the previous two years. The biggest decline, FireEye noted, was on the weeks leading to the bilateral agreement between the United States and China that called for a truce on cyber espionage between the two global superpowers.
