London: The US has planned to launch an unprecedented counter-attack on the individual Chinese hackers who are accused of stealing the country’s state and industrial secrets.
The US will name the perpetrators and bringing lawsuits and fines, in a series of personal attacks on Chinese hackers.
The move follows on from the announcement on Wednesday by the computer security company Mandiant that it had discovered a unit of the Chinese Army based in Shanghai that it claims has stolen hundreds of terrabytes of information from 140 US firms, the Independent.
According to the paper, the US announcement also signals one other important change, that the cyber security industry is now confident that it can identify those who are carrying out the attacks.
Up until now attribution has been a difficulty and many times over the past 10 years countries identified as being responsible for cyber crime have claimed that the attacks are simply being routed through their countries but are not actually originating from there.
Sources in the intelligence and cyber worlds said that the release of the Mandiant report has been deliberately time to coincide with the US Government announcement of a crackdown on those attacking it.
Rumours of the US response have been circulating in the UK, well in advance of David Cameron’s announcement that Britain would be seeking to co-operate with India to build cyber centres of excellence and indicate an attempt to generate a united front against the Chinese in the light of the hacking activity claimed by Mandiant, the paper said.
ANI
