IBM Says No Evidence That ‘Sensitive’ Data Was Taken by Hackers

(Bloomberg) -- International Business Machines Corp. says it doesn’t have any evidence that hackers took “sensitive” company and client information after Reuters reported China’s Ministry of State Security attacked IBM and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.

“IBM has been aware of the reported attacks and already has taken extensive counter-measures worldwide as part of our continuous efforts to protect the company and our clients against constantly evolving threats,” Ed Barbini, a spokesman for IBM, said in a text message. “We take responsible stewardship of client data very seriously, and have no evidence that sensitive IBM or client data has been compromised by this threat.”

In indictments announced Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department accused Chinese officials of running a spying campaign for roughly 10 years to steal intellectual property from dozens of companies. Trade secret theft has been a major point of contention in ongoing efforts to ratchet down tensions between the U.S. and China.

HPE and IBM were two of those firms, Reuters reported earlier Thursday. Chinese hackers got into the tech companies’ networks and client computers, Reuters said, citing five unidentified sources familiar with the attacks.

“The security of HPE customer data is our top priority. We are unable to comment on the specific details described in the indictment,” an HPE spokesman said in an email, adding the company sold its managed services provider business to DXC Technology Co. 2017.

DXC said it was aware of the Justice Department’s action, adding in a statement that “DXC does not comment concerning reports of specific cyber-events or specific cyberthreat actors.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Gerrit De Vynck in New York at gdevynck@bloomberg.net;Ian King in San Francisco at ianking@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Andrew Pollack, Dan Reichl

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