shut down businesses in the nation with Chinese cyberattacks and spy equipment embedded in computer and telecommunications equipment. MI5 has reportedly monitored Chinese espionage against Rio Tinto Group computers. According to Robert Hannigan, former Director of the Government Communications Headquarters, Chinese hackers have engaged in economic espionage against British universities and engineering companies, on behalf of the Chinese government. Vatican City According to an investigation by Recorded Future, Chinese hackers broke into the computer networks of the Vatican and the Holy See's Study Mission to China, including by placing malware in what appeared to be a letter from Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin. In the weeks after the investigation was published the hackers continued to operate on Vatican networks, by November 2020 the group targeting the Vatican had changed their tactics to avoid detection but were discovered by researchers from the firm Proofpoint. North America Canada Newspapers have estimated that China may have up to 1,000 spies in Canada. The head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Richard Fadden in a television interview was assumed to have implied that various Canadian politicians at provincial and municipal levels had ties to Chinese intelligence. In an interview, he claimed that some politicians were under the influence of a foreign government, but he withdrew the statement a few days later. It was assumed by Chinese groups in Canada, and others, that he was referring to China because in the same interview he stressed the high level of Chinese spying in Canada, however Fadden did not say specifically which country these politicians were under the influence of. His statement was withdrawn a few days later. In 2005, Canadian businessman Joe Wang stated his belief that threatening letters he received after broadcasting programs about alleged human rights abuses in China were from the Chinese consulate; one of the envelopes contained boric acid. In 2012 Mark Bourrie, an Ottawa-based freelance journalist, stated that the State Council-run Xinhua News Agency asked him to collect information on the Dalai Lama through their Ottawa bureau chief, Dacheng Zhang, by exploiting his journalistic access to the Parliament of Canada. Bourrie stated that he was asked to write for Xinhua in 2009 and sought advice from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), but was ignored. Bourrie was asked to collect information on the Sixth World Parliamentarians' Convention on Tibet at the Ottawa Convention Centre, although Xinhua had no intention of