BEIJING, Feb 19 (Reuters) – A secretive Chinese military
unit is believed to be behind a prolific series of hacking
attacks, a U.S. computer security company said, contradicting
claims by China’s government that it is not involved in such
operations.
The report by Mandiant identified the People’s Liberation
Army’s Shanghai-based Unit 61398 as the most likely driving
force behind the hacking. Mandiant said it believed the unit had
carried out “sustained” attacks on a wide set of industries.
“The nature of ‘Unit 61398’s’ work is considered by China to
be a state secret; however, we believe it engages in harmful
‘Computer Network Operations’,” Mandiant said in the report
released in the United States on Monday.
“It is time to acknowledge the threat is originating in
China, and we wanted to do our part to arm and prepare security
professionals to combat that threat effectively,” it said.
China’s Defence Ministry did not immediately respond to
faxed questions about the report on Tuesday.
Unit 61398 is located in Shanghai’s Pudong district, China’s
financial and banking hub, and is staffed by perhaps thousands
of people proficient in English as well as computer programming
and network operations, the report said.
The unit has stolen “hundreds of terabytes of data from at
least 141 organisations across a diverse set of industries
beginning as early as 2006″, it said.
Most of the victims were located in the United States, with
smaller numbers in Canada and Britain. The information stolen
ranged from details on mergers and acquisitions to the emails of
senior employees, the report said.
The Chinese government has consistently denied being
involved in such activities. Experts scoff at the denials.
“The PLA plays a key role in China’s multi-faceted security
strategy, so it makes sense that its resources would be used to
facilitate economic cyber espionage that helps the Chinese
economy,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer and
co-founder of CrowdStrike, one of Mandiant’s competitors.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Jim Finkle
in BOSTON; Editing by Paul Tait)
