For more than a year, hackers with ties to the Chinese military have been eavesdropping on U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials involved in Asia affairs, authorities say.
The hackers had access to everything in Chamber computers, including, potentially, the entire U.S. trade policy playbook.
“The Chinese have attacked every major U.S. company, every government agency, and NGO’s. Their attacking the Chamber of Commerce is part of a pattern of their attacking everything in the US. If you’re working on U.S.-China relations with an NGO, government agency, you can be sure the Chinese are reading your emails and on your computer,” Richard Clarke, former White House counter-terrorism adviser, told ABC News.
At one point, the penetration into the Chamber of Commerce was so complete that a Chamber thermostat was communicating with a computer in China.
“I don’t think the Chamber of Commerce has anything worth stealing, but it’s part of a pattern of the Chinese stealing of everything they can, and that’s worrying,” Clarke said.
The same year, a Chinese spy at Ford Motor Company downloaded thousands of files on hybrid engine design and gave them to the Chinese government, and a cyber attack traced to China allegedly stole design secrets to a U.S. stealth fighter jet. >>ABC News
