FBI sees 53% surge in economic espionage, blames China
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) blames China for a significant surge in economic espionage cases across the United States.
The head of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, Randall Coleman, said at a briefing that the bureau has identified a 53 percent increase in the theft of secret trade information from US companies, inflicting hundreds of billions of damages over the past year.
“The predominant threat we face right now is from China,” Coleman said on Thursday.
The exact number of total cases of economic espionage is classified, but Coleman said it is “in the hundreds.”
“It’s across the board,” said Dean Chappell, an agent in the division. “It’s not high-end avionics for military aircraft. It’s not Joint Strike Fighter stuff. It’s all of the things that we see every day.”
Federal authorities say foreigners steal trade secrets to gain access to a broad range of technologies, including financial transaction software, military telecommunications, and drone technology.
The White House has stopped short of calling out China for the recent massive hack against the Office of Personnel Management, which compromised personal information on more than 22 million current and former US government employees.
However, media reports suggest that Obama administration officials have privately determined that hackers linked to the Chinese government were responsible for what has been described as the biggest intelligence disasters in recent memory.
Newsweek reported late last month that FBI agents’ personnel files were stolen by suspected Chinese hackers as part of a broader attack on the federal government.
Beijing says Washington’s cyber attack accusations are hypocritical, since intelligence leaks have revealed that the US itself is the most active perpetrator of cyber espionage against foreign countries, especially against China.
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