The Chinese have been pillaging intellectual property and corporate secrets from the West through hacking the servers of targeted companies : to the tune of $ 160bn worth every year . But what happens to the corporate post - hack ? An Australian maker of metal - detectors , Codan , tells the following tale of woe . Back in 2006 the company started receiving complaints about faulty metal detectors : problem was that they were n't Codan 's metal detectors . The tools carried their brand and externally looked similar , but inside many of the parts were unrecognised and inferior - it was a Chinese - thing . Then the company was told that an employee 's laptop had been hacked whilst he was on a business trip to mainland China : inside the laptop were the parts of Codan 's next design . Counterfeit detectors soon started to swamp the market and Codan had to half its prices to compete . Meantime demand started to dry up and within a year the company 's sales had dropped from A$ 20 to A$ 9.2mn : and the company is still reeling . FireEye says APT3 engages in "phishing", a technique of sending company employees innocuous emails containing website addresses which trick them into downloading programs that automatically lead to protected information. The Australian Government did n't want to get involved as it was trying to finalise a " free trade " agreement with the Chinese : as the company 's CEO tells it , " you are on your own " .
The Chinese have been pillaging intellectual property and corporate secrets from the West through hacking the servers of targeted companies : to the tune of $ 160bn worth every year . But what happens to the corporate post - hack ? An Australian maker of metal - detectors , Codan , tells the following tale of woe . Back in 2006 the company started receiving complaints about faulty metal detectors : problem was that they were n't Codan 's metal detectors . The tools carried their brand and externally looked similar , but inside many of the parts were unrecognised and inferior - it was a Chinese - thing . Then the company was told that an employee 's laptop had been hacked whilst he was on a business trip to mainland China : inside the laptop were the parts of Codan 's next design . Counterfeit detectors soon started to swamp the market and Codan had to half its prices to compete . Meantime demand started to dry up and within a year the company 's sales had dropped from A$ 20 to A$ 9.2mn : and the company is still reeling . The Australian Government did n't want to get involved as it was trying to finalise a " free trade " agreement with the Chinese : as the company 's CEO tells it , " you are on your own " .