The Chinese government and its Communist Party aren't the most popular folks with Western countries and companies these days. They have been accused of spying and online espionage.
The most recent case is a hacking incident in Canada. The Canadian government, supported by a security research firm, is accusing the Chinese army of breaching a Canadian government office.
The same research firm was cited in similar cases where the United States also accused China of spy activities, according to a Tech Times article. The security firm, CrowdStrike, believes an elite group of the Chinese military that the firm refers to as "Putter Pander" is behind many of these surgical and strategic hacking activities. They said the operation that targeted the U.S. government was coming out of a People's Liberation Army (PLA) building in Shanghai, China.
A Canadian science and technology agency was the target of the alleged attack, according to a recent news report (subscription required) on the matter. On Thursday, the agency made the announcement and said the government in Canada will take more steps to protect its own sensitive information. It could be several weeks or months before the agency will resume its normal activities, though.
The National Research Council, based in Ottawa, said it was hacked and that sophisticated Chinese hackers sponsored by the government in China were responsible. The NRC is a leading government body that works with various industries including transportation, engineering and technology companies like Bombardier Inc., who builds trains. The government in Beijing, meanwhile, said that Canada is making claims with no credible evidence, according to another report.
CrowdStrike clams the Chinese military group, Unit 61486, has thousands of agents and conducts intelligence-gathering activities on satellite and aerospace industries. CrowdStrike is based in California.
China, like other developed nations, has dismissed most, if not all, of these espionage claims. Espionage has become a pervasive topic of debate around the world and virtually all governments have been criticized for their efforts at spying on industry and private citizenry. Edward Snowden's NSA leaks are a prime example.
The attack on the NRC in Canada was intensive as well as invasive and the agency is forced to reconfigure its infrastructure with major changes, according to one more recent report. That could take up to a year, according to this report. Canada, however, has seen other major cyberattacks that targeted its government agencies' infrastructures. However, in those attacks, Canada did not blame China.
China has become a dominant economic and military player in the world and many fear that it has done so through such invasive activities. Plus, China has a massive population and the world's largest army. It also has invested a lot of money in finding the youngest and brightest minds in the fields of computer science and other technical processes.
