A former Verizon employee who gave Chinese security agents information about his employer, Chinese hacking and pro-democracy activists living in the US was sentenced to four years in prison on Monday.
Ping Li, 59, pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiring to become a Chinese agent going back to at least 2012. His sentence comes as the US cyber security community is reeling from a Chinese hacking operation that US Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, recently described as “the worst hacking of phones in our nation’s history—by far.”
The operation, which compromised Verizon and other telecommunications giants, targeted politicians including Donald Trump and Kamala Harris and may have given the Salt Typhoon hacking group, which is linked to China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), access to the victims’ phone records. messages. The hack exploited security features that companies built into their systems to help local law enforcement with wiretapping requests.
Li’s plea agreement does not suggest that he was involved in the Salt Storm hack, but his case shows how China has sought to infiltrate major networks and use insiders to gather information about the operations of companies and political opponents.
Li, who was born in China but immigrated to the US 30 years ago and became a US citizen 16 years ago, began working for Chinese MSS agents at least in 2012, according to his sentencing memorandum. He traveled the country to meet his classmate and friend who worked for MSS many times and shared information with them through various online accounts.
Li shared information with MSS agents about the different types of communications the US government can monitor electronically, what Verizon branches in China were doing, and cybersecurity training materials from another employer. He also provided agents with names and identifying information about members of Falun Gong, a religious group banned in China, living in the US at his request.
When the FBI arrested Li in July, he initially said that the MSS agent and a former friend had asked for advice about investing in the stock market, according to his plea deal. But after being confronted about the emails he had sent, he admitted that he had conducted research on behalf of China and sent internal cyber security material from his employer that he knew he was not allowed to share.
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