Data Leak Exposes Names and Locations of Party Members Living and Working Abroad
Note: We may earn a commission from products or services when you click on a link and make a purchase.
The identities of 1.95 million Communist Party of China (CPC) parentheses have been exposed by an Australian newspaper. The information includes employment information. The data, obtained by The Australian, found that CPC members work at consulates including the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom consulates in Shanghai.
The CPC members live all over the world. They work for global companies, government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, in universities.
According to the report, the Chinese government has 79,000 branches established in private companies and universities.
News host Sharri Markson said that CPC branches had been set up inside western companies where party members, “if called on, are answerable directly to the Communist Party” and President Xi himself.
READ China Acquired NSA Hacking Tools
Leaked CPC personal data includes date of birth, Chinese national identification number, and ethnicity. It also includes their position in the Communist Party of China.
Some of the pharmaceutical companies named in the report from The Economic Times are involved in the development of COVID-19 vaccines. This includes multinational pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer and British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical AstraZeneca. German pharma BioNTech partnered with Pfizer and won the approval of their COVID-19 vaccines from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week.
READ China Suspected in Marriott Hack
The data leak obtained by The Australian newspaper and was exfiltrated from a Shanghai server in April 2016 by Chinese dissidents and whistleblowers who have been using the information for counter-intelligence purposes.
Party members hold positions at enterprise organizations like HSBC, Boeing, and Volkswagen.
In September, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the US Department of Justice issued a joint advisory warning US government agencies and private sector companies to be on high alert for cyberattacks by threat actors affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS).
