Well, the Justice Department a couple of weeks ago said it would name Chinese spying on US industries and government offices. They finally did. They named two - out of the thousands that are hacking - so I hope the Justice Department doesn't feel good about what it did. The Chinese response was “With Washington favoring a confrontational approach aimed at maintaining its hegemony rather than a cooperative one for the common good, Beijing will have to be prepared to stand its ground and respond as necessary to safeguard its core interests.” Reuters carries a story that describes a more detailed response by China.
The Wall Street Journal, among other press outlets, says the Chinese were burrowing into the networks of service providers IBM and HP Enterprise, using those penetrations to get to their clients. That part isn't new since hackers used maintenance accounts to get into businesses for many years. That is what remote maintenance gets you. The charges brought comment from IBM that they had no evidence that any customer information was stolen. You can bet the FBI does,and you can bet IBM knows it. They couldn't name these individuals unless they had the grounds to go to court, so you can be sure there is a mountain of evidence of what they were doing. The clients of both companies are probably asking how such a thing could happen when both promise security in their offerings.
What this points to is the depth of China's effort to steal and use technology to better themselves. They believe that if we don't protect our information, we deserve to lose it. They are partially right about that part. Charging these two is a small drop in the bucket of hacking, and probably not the best way to disrupt the Chinese operations. It is like the Chinese charging someone from the FBI for spying on their diplomats who are hacking. The FBI could care less if they do. The Chinese will not care much about this case either. It causes them no pain. For that reason alone, it is curious.
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