Before a spy gets caught there is a brief period when escape is possible, but after they are caught, the best option is to limit damage as much as possible. We are seeing that in China with the company Guangdong Bo Yu Information Technology Co., also known as Boyusec. Three of its employees have been identified as being responsible for hacks seeking sensitive information in commercial facilities. A month ago, the US tried to get China’s help in stopping this behavior. After waiting without reply, the US decided to indict instead.
Instead of the usual response, today’s Wall Street Journal says the Chinese disbanded the company. While odd to some, it is anything but.
Boyusec had links to the Ministry of State Security. If this spying was related to any of the tasking given by the Ministry, then their work would be traceable back to official government hacking-by-proxy which violates a 2015 agreement with the US to stop doing that kind of thing. The Chinese took their hacking out of the Army and brought it under control in agencies with better expertise and less chance of being caught. The downside is that commercial work has a tendency to drift away from multiple government partners who pay for this kind of work. Closing the company may have a couple of effects: (1) warning government agencies that their tasking of contractors should stay within Central Government guidelines, (2) putting tighter controls on how they carry out their work - so they don’t get caught and (3) giving the appearance of doing something to stop hacking, without interfering with that work.
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