China still steals commercial secrets for its own firms’ profit

EARLIER THIS year Microsoft found that a group of hackers, which it called Hafnium, had broken into hundreds of thousands of computer servers around the world that were running the firm’s mail and calendar software. The cyber-thieves were stealing emails, documents and other data from small businesses, NGOs and local governments in an enormous, seemingly indiscriminate, cyber-attack. In July America, Britain, other members of NATO and the European Union all blamed China. America was more specific. It named China’s civilian intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS).

Such co-ordinated condemnation of the Chinese government for allegedly hacking into foreign computer systems was unprecedented. But it was no surprise in the West that China appeared to be responsible (as always in such cases, it denied involvement).