Four members of the Chinese military have been charged with breaking into the networks of the Equifax credit reporting agency and stealing the personal information of tens of millions of Americans.

The 2017 breach affected roughly 145 million people, with the hackers successfully stealing names, Social Security numbers and other personal information stored in the company's databases.

The Justice Department on Monday blamed China for one of the largest hacks in history. 

The four - Wu Zhiyong, Wang Qian, Xu Ke and Liu Lei - are members of the People's Liberation Army, which is an arm of the Chinese military. They remain at large. 

They are also accused of stealing the company's trade secrets. 

'This was a deliberate and sweeping intrusion into the private information of the American people,' Attorney General William Barr said at a press conference announcing the charges on Monday.