Bloomberg report says Chinese cyberspies have hit hundreds of companies, government agencies

Cyberspies from China have hit 760 companies, research institutions, ISPs and government agencies over the past decade, according to a Bloomberg article published Tuesday.

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The Bloomberg story names a range of possible industrial espionage victims of China-based computer hacking, including technology companies such as Intel, HP, Yahoo and Salt Lake City-based iBahn, whose network services international travelers. Also on the list: Xerox division Associated Computer Systems, Volkswagen, Innovative Solutions & Support, MIT, the Italian Academic and Research Network, the California State University Network and Boston Scientific. The Bloomberg article also mentions Google, which in 2010 itself publicly disclosed an attack it indicated was likely tied to China.

The Bloomberg article doesn’t detail the exact source of its information, other than to allude to “a senior U.S. intelligence officer.” One named source for the article, Dmitri Alperovitch, head of his own firm Asymmetric Cyber Operations, says hackers launching a cyberattack from China broke into South Korean steel company POSCO in July 2006 at the time of a large business transaction related to a steel mill in China.

Additional allegedly hacked companies listed by Bloomberg but not attributed to named sources other than “intelligence data” include Danish technology company Thrane & Thrane, Abbott Laboratories, Wyeth (now part of Pfizer), Parkland Computer Center in Rockville, Md., Cypress Semiconductor, Research in Motion, Aerospace Corp. and Environmental Systems Research Institute.

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