Four members of China's military were charged with hacking into Equifax in 2017 and stealing personal data of about 150 million Americans, as well as trade secrets. The US Attorney General William Barr said the hack was a deliberate and sweeping intrusion into the private information of the American people and that "China can use caches of personal information and combine them with artificial intelligence to better target American intelligence officers and other officials". The indictment suggests the hack was part of a series of major data thefts organized by the People's Liberation Army and Chinese intelligence agencies. The Chinese government has denied any suggestion that its operatives are conducting cyberattacks or espionage.