Cyber-espionage from China is rapidly increasing in quantity and quality, the BBC reported today. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission released a report to Congress this week that detailed a major increase in the sophistication and prevalence of Chinese online intelligence gathering. According to the report, the United States and Chinese dissidents living abroad were the targets of much of the espionage, and the spying is linked by direct and circumstantial evidence to the Chinese government.
The Department of Justice reported a 20 percent increase in malicious online attacks in 2008, and expects that number to increase by 60 percent in 2009. The report also asserted that China is building naval assets capable of denying US access to the region in the event of a conflict between the mainland and the Republic of China.
Chinese officials denied both allegations. According to the BBC, the spokesmen for the Chinese embassy in the US denied that the Chinese government supported cyber-espionage, and called the Taiwan conflict scenario a “Cold War fantasy.”
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