The charges mark an escalation in DOJ’s long-running pressure campaign to try to hold alleged Chinese state-sponsored hacking to account.

“The threat and the challenge is persistent. The Chinese remain very aggressive in their use of cyber,” Assistant Secretary of Defense Randall G. Schriver said during a press briefing on a new report.

Mandiant is pushing back against a claim in David Sanger's new book that its researched was partly aided by 'hacking back' into Chinese government systems.