Second, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced an initiative to address Chinese cyberattacks and corporate spying on US companies. "Chinese economic espionage against the United States has been increasing -- and it has been increasing rapidly," Sessions said in a statement. "We are here today to say: Enough is enough. We're not going to take it anymore."Relations between the US and China have been tense in a wide range of areas touching on technology and the economy. In recent months, for instance, the US has taken action against Chinese phone maker ZTE tied to international trade activities and against networking giant Huawei over national security concerns. In the last year, the Trump administration and the government in Beijing have imposed a series of trade sanctions on an extensive array of goods.

President Donald Trump has also accused China of engaging in propaganda campaigns over social media similar to what Russia and Iran have done. Lawmakers have pushed back on those allegations, asking Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats to provide evidence of Chinese interference in US elections.
Sessions said Chinese state-owned chipmaker Fujian Jinhua, Taiwan semiconductor foundry United Microelectronics Corporation and three Taiwanese nationals stole trade secrets from chipmaker Micron. One of the nationals served as chairman of a company Micron acquired in 2013, the Justice Department said. He became the president of a Taiwanese branch under Micron, resigned in 2015 and brought trade secrets over to UMC, which is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and which had a technology-sharing agreement with Fujian Jinhua, prosecutors said.

The other two nationals are also former Micron employees.According to the indictment, the Taiwanese nationals downloaded more than 900 confidential files from Micron. Those trade secrets are now worth nearly $9 billion, the agency said.The indictment was filed Sept. 27 and unsealed Thursday. The Justice Department also filed a civil lawsuit to stop the trade secrets in question from spreading, Sessions said.Those trade secrets center on a technology known as DRAM (dynamic random access memory), which these Chinese companies didn't have until the data theft, prosecutors said.If convicted, each individual faces up to 15 years in prison and a $5 million fine.

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"We appreciate the US Department of Justice's decision to prosecute the criminal theft of our intellectual property," said Joel Poppen, Micron's senior vice president for legal affairs. "Micron has invested billions of dollars over decades to develop its intellectual property. The actions announced today reinforce that criminal misappropriation will be appropriately addressed."UMC said the allegations in the virtually the same as those included in a lawsuit Micron filed last year against UMC."UMC regrets that the US Attorney's Office brought these charges without first notifying UMC and giving it an opportunity to discuss the matter," UMC said in a statement.The China initiative

The US also views China as a major cybersecurity threat. China has continued hacking US companies despite a 2015 agreement between Chinese President Xi Jinping and then US President Barack Obama that banned government spying on industries, Sessions said during Thursday's press conference.

"That commitment has not been met," he said.Now the Justice Department has a new China Initiative focused on deterring Chinese espionage and protecting against the theft of trade secrets from US companies."This initiative will identify priority trade theft cases and ensure we have enough resources dedicated to them," Sessions said Thursday.On Tuesday, the Justice Department also announced charges against two Chinese intelligence officers and a team of hackers for allegedly stealing sensitive commercial aviation secrets and data. That was just a day after the Department of Commerce restricted exports to Fujian Jinhua, calling the company a national security risk.Security researchers have warned for months about China ramping up cyberattacks, with hackers targeting industries across the board, Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, said in a statement.

"China is back as the most prolific nation-state actor conducting industrial espionage via cyber and non-cyber means," he said.The Department of Justice charged a Russian national for interfering in US politics after investigators followed a $35 million paper trail back to St. Petersburg, Russia. Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova served as the chief accountant for Project Lakhta, an umbrella term for multiple Russian propaganda efforts, according to court documents released Friday. Project Lakhta includes the Internet Research Agency, a trolling operation designed to influence the 2016 presidential election and spread political chaos. The action isn't the first against Russian nationals accused of interfering in US elections. In February, US officials charged 13 Russian nationals tied to the IRA, as well as 12 hackers behind cyberattacks that targeted the Democratic National Committee in July.

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The charges come as US officials and tech companies deal with election meddling from nation-states, including Russia, China and Iran. Outside of cyberattacks, countries are using social media to spread propaganda, an activity that Facebook and Twitter are actively trying to combat. Khusyaynova managed funds for Project Lakhta, handling a budget of more than $35 million between January 2016 and June 2018, prosecutors said. Between January and June this year, the project had a proposed budget of over $10 million. The group spent $12 million in 2016 and $12.2 million in 2017, according to the documents. The money was dedicated to spreading disinformation in the US through propaganda on social media. The efforts included the creation of Twitter accounts, paying trolls to post on Facebook, and logistics such as search engine optimization and graphics.

"Unlawful foreign interference with these debates debases their democratic integrity," Assistant Attorney General John Demers said in a statement. "We will make every effort to disrupt it and hold those involved accountable."The court documents stated that Khusyaynova meticulously noted expenses and budget requests related to Russia's trolling campaign over the last three years. Between January and June, requests for Facebook advertisements totaled $60,000, while those for Instagram ads totaled $6,000, the documents said. During those same six months, Russian trolls also asked for $18,000 to create more Twitter accounts. The trolls focused on issues like immigration, gun control, racial divisions, LGBT rights and net neutrality, the documents said. The Russian trolls also fanned arguments after national news events, such as the mass shooting in Las Vegas and the "Unite the Right" rally in Virginia.

The goal was to "effectively aggravate the conflict between minorities and the rest of the population," according to internal documents. Though Facebook vowed to prevent Russian trolls from purchasing ads on Facebook for political purposes, court documents indicate nation-state actors found loopholes by convincing US citizens to do it for them. In one exchange on July 2, 2017, a troll under the fake persona "Helen Christopherson" messaged a US group, writing, "I got, like, $80 on my ad account, so we can reach, like, 10,000 people in DC or so. That would be massive!"The targeted ad for Washington, DC, had an estimated reach of 29,000 to 58,000 people. In another exchange, on July 4, 2017, a troll account using the name "Bertha Malone" convinced another American to help her run the "Stop A.I. (All Invaders)" page. The chat log ended with the US citizen telling the Russian troll "i trust you."