While fingers have long been pointed from US shores towards China when it comes to online attacks, the Pentagon has now directly accused the country’s government and military of cyberespionage.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Pentagon issued a report just yesterday outlining for the first time how it believes digital attacks have been directly performed by the Chinese government and its military. From the report:
China is using its computer network exploitation capability to support intelligence collection against the U.S. diplomatic, economic, and defense industrial base sectors that support U.S. national defense programs.
Elsewhere, the report explains how “China’s cyberespionage was designed to benefit China’s defense and technology industry and to gain insight into U.S. policy makers’ thinking on China”. While it’s not exactly surprising news, it’s interesting that the Pentagon now feels confident enough to directly accuse China of cyberespionage. So far Chinese officials haven’t responded to the accusations. [WSJ]
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