“The top U.S. intelligence official signaled Thursday that Chinese hackers were behind the theft of millions of personnel records from the federal government,” The Wall Street Journal reports, “marking the administration’s most pointed assignment of blame since the breach was announced June 4.”  

“Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, speaking at a Washington intelligence conference, said China was the ‘leading suspect’ in the attacks… The administration previously avoided publicly attributing the breach to China, though numerous U.S. officials privately have said the hackers were Chinese.”  

“In past years it was unusual for the U.S. government to identify suspected cyberthieves, but that may be changing. In December, the White House accused North Korea of stealing and destroying large amounts of records from Sony Pictures Entertainment. And in May 2014, a federal grand jury indicted five Chinese military hackers for ‘computer hacking, economic espionage’ and other offenses against entities including a U.S. nuclear plant.”