China has long been cited as the biggest source of cyber-aggression on the planet, but according to Reuters this might be changing as Chinese domestic companies increasingly fall victim to significant data breaches themselves. There is little public data on the scale or intesity of domestic hacks within China, but a sharp increase over the past two years has meant that Chinese black-hats (i.e. independent hackers) are increasingly joining domestic companies as "white hats" as the companies start to realise the need for adequate cyber-defenses themselves. Last May a local non-profit agency said that it had recorded threefold data leaks across domestic companies in 2014 - a 9068 increase on 2013. APTs are also a big issue for both corporates and the State, with Qihoo 360 Technology (a Chinese cyber-security company) reporting the discovery of "a series of cyber-intrusions against important Chinese targets that lasted for years" that targetted agencies, research institutes and corporates.
China has long been cited as the biggest source of cyber-aggression on the planet, but according to Reuters this might be changing as Chinese domestic companies increasingly fall victim to significant data breaches themselves. There is little public data on the scale or intesity of domestic hacks within China, but a sharp increase over the past two years has meant that Chinese black-hats (i.e. independent hackers) are increasingly joining domestic companies as "white hats" as the companies start to realise the need for adequate cyber-defenses themselves. Last May a local non-profit agency said that it had recorded 9068 data leaks across domestic companies in 2014 - a threefold increase on 2013. APTs are also a big issue for both corporates and the State, with Qihoo 360 Technology (a Chinese cyber-security company) reporting the discovery of "a series of cyber-intrusions against important Chinese targets that lasted for years" that targetted agencies, research institutes and corporates.