US federal agents arrested a Chinese citizen attempting to obtain hundreds of radiation-hardened microchips typically used in satellites and ballistic missile systems as he tried to leave the United States last year, according to court documents obtained by Quartz.
The made-to-order chip is manufactured and sold in the United States by Cobham, a multinational defense contractor headquartered in Britain. They cost $2,500 each, and the company only makes about 1,000 of them a year. They are made to withstand extreme temperatures, severe vibrations, and radiation exposure. Known as “rad-hard chips,” they require a license from the Department of Commerce to export, and sending the chips to China—as well as a small handful of other countries, including Russia—is banned outright. A commercial version of the same chip, with the same memory capacity but without the ability to survive in the harsh conditions of outer space, goes for about $60.
Beijing’s attempts to acquire sensitive American technology target not just the US government and the defense industry, but major universities and research scientists as well.
Chinese hackers have already compromised dozens of critical US weapons systems. In 2018, Chinese hackers stole top-secret plans for a supersonic anti-ship missile the Navy was developing. Last fall, two Chinese diplomats living in the United States—one of whom authorities believe was in fact an undercover intelligence officer—were expelled from the country after attempting to get onto a secure Virginia military base. Authorities recently charged a Chinese-born tour guide in San Francisco with passing US secrets to China’s Ministry of State Security. And last month, two different Chinese nationals were caught surveilling the same Florida military base twice in two weeks.
https://qz.com/1794308/how-a-chinese-national-trying-to-smuggle-us-microchips-got-caught/
When Wei Sun, a 48-year-old engineer at Raytheon Missile Systems, left for an overseas trip last year, he told the company he planned to bring his company-issued HP EliteBook 840 laptop along.
Sun, a Chinese-born American citizen, had been working at Raytheon, the fourth-largest US defense contractor, for a decade. He held a secret-level security clearance and worked on highly sensitive missile programs used by the US military.
Since Sun’s computer contained large amounts of restricted data, Raytheon officials told him that taking it abroad would not only be a violation of company policy, but a serious violation of federal law, as well.
When Sun returned to the United States a week later, he told Raytheon security officials that he had only visited Singapore and the Philippines during his travels. But inconsistent stories about his itinerary led Sun to confess that he traveled to China with the laptop.
https://qz.com/1795127/raytheon-engineer-arrested-for-taking-us-missile-defense-secrets-to-china/
It’s like we’re under attack.
Raytheon engineer arrested for taking US missile defense secrets to China
https://qz.com/1795127/raytheon-engineer-arrested-for-taking-us-missile-defense-secrets-to-china/