Chuck Darwin<p>Western governments struggle to coordinate response to Chinese hacking</p><p><a href="https://c.im/tags/Chinese" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Chinese</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/hacking" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>hacking</span></a> attempts are not isolated events. Rather, they constitute the <a href="https://c.im/tags/ecosystem" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>ecosystem</span></a> in which all western governments must navigate their relationships with Beijing. </p><p>In a report published on 27 March, Google said China “continues to lead the way for government-backed exploitation”. <br /><a href="https://c.im/tags/APT31" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>APT31</span></a> alone has been linked to hacks in France, Finland and of Microsoft, while New Zealand said this week that another well-known Chinese hacking outfit, <a href="https://c.im/tags/APT40" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>APT40</span></a>, attacked its parliament in 2021 (the Chinese embassy in New Zealand denied the allegations).</p><p>A recent leak of data from the Chinese cybersecurity firm <a href="https://c.im/tags/iSoon" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>iSoon</span></a> revealed the extent to which China’s hackers for hire compete for government contracts, <br />sometimes hoovering up data from foreign agencies "on spec" with the hope of selling it to the highest bidder. <br />In the case of APT31, the US Department of Justice alleges that the hacking operation was💥 directly run by a provincial department of China’s ministry of state security.💥<br />But in general, said Mei <a href="https://c.im/tags/Danowski" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Danowski</span></a>, a China cybersecurity expert and author of the "Natto Thoughts" newsletter, <br />🔸nearly every cybersecurity firm in China 🔸would have some sort of contract with government clients. <br />With a cybersecurity industry worth an estimated $13bn, that is a lot of potential hackers.</p><p>That leaves western governments struggling to coordinate an effective response to hacks or hacking attempts. <br />In many cases, the Chinese government has <a href="https://c.im/tags/plausible" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>plausible</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/deniability" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>deniability</span></a> about responsibility, and it is not always clear what the impact of data breaches are. <br />Audrye <a href="https://c.im/tags/Wong" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Wong</span></a>, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California, said that while <a href="https://c.im/tags/Russian" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Russian</span></a>-based hacks oftene “sow discord and chaos”, <a href="https://c.im/tags/China" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>China</span></a> was “more cautious” and “still very much cares about shaping perceptions of China and the Chinese Communist party”. </p><p>Many western international security experts refer to the maxim that while Russia may be the storm, China is climate change.</p><p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/29/western-governments-struggle-coordinate-response-chinese-hacking?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">theguardian.com/world/2024/mar</span><span class="invisible">/29/western-governments-struggle-coordinate-response-chinese-hacking?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other</span></a></p>