“The leak provides some of the most concrete details seen publicly to date, revealing the maturing nature of China’s cyber espionage ecosystem,” SentinelLabs analysts said.It also revealed that Beijing was increasingly turning to private contractors for many of its hacking operations abroad.Striking infrastructureIntelligence agency bosses from the Five Eyes—an information-sharing alliance of major English-speaking countries—met in October for the first time ever and for one reason: China.Mike Burgess, head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, told the gathering that the meeting would focus on “behaviour that goes well beyond traditional espionage”.The targets are shifting, experts say: Microsoft said last May that it had detected a campaign by China-backed Volt Typhoon against critical US infrastructure.The goal, it said, was to be able to disrupt communications infrastructure in the United States and Asia during crises.In November, the company said Volt Typhoon was trying to improve its methods and had added universities to its target list.US authorities said they removed the group’s malware from compromised US-based routers.Volt Typhoon appeared to be a highly sophisticated operation that could originate from a “specialised cyber intrusion contractor”, Matthew Brazil, a senior fellow at The Jamestown Foundation and a former US diplomat, told AFP at the time.’Biggest hacking empire’The United States has long had its own ways of spying on China, deploying surveillance, interception techniques and networks of informants.And Washington’s forays into cyber warfare, online surveillance and hacking are well documented.Beijing points to these examples when attention turns to its cyberattacks, accusing Washington of being the “world’s biggest hacking empire.”It flatly denies allegations that it engages in state-organised hacking of overseas targets, dismissing Microsoft’s report from last May as “extremely unprofessional.”
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