The Times Online reported in January that the UK’s MI5 was battling devious Chinese attempts to entrap UK businessmen, with electronic bugging devices….and sexual “honey traps”. (Not as imaginative as the CIA’s “acoustic kitty,” but probably more effective):
“A leaked MI5 document says that undercover intelligence officers from the People’s Liberation Army and the Ministry of Public Security have also approached UK businessmen at trade fairs and exhibitions with the offer of “gifts” and “lavish hospitality”.
The gifts — cameras and memory sticks — have been found to contain electronic Trojan bugs which provide the Chinese with remote access to users’ computers.
MI5 says the Chinese government “represents one of the most significant espionage threats to the UK” because of its use of these methods, as well as widespread electronic hacking.
Written by MI5’s Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, the 14-page “restricted” report describes how China has attacked UK defence, energy, communications and manufacturing companies in a concerted hacking campaign.
It claims China has also gone much further, targeting the computer networks and email accounts of public relations companies and international law firms. “Any UK company might be at risk if it holds information which would benefit the Chinese,” the report says.
The explicit nature of the MI5 warning is likely to strain diplomatic ties between London and Beijing. Relations between the two countries were damaged last month after China’s decision to execute a mentally ill British man for alleged drug trafficking.
Earlier this month the United States demanded that China investigate a sophisticated hacking attack on Google and a further 30 American companies from Chinese soil.
China has occasionally attempted sexual entrapment to target senior British political figures. Two years ago an aide to Gordon Brown had his BlackBerry phone stolen after being picked up by a Chinese woman who had approached him in a Shanghai hotel disco.”
So now you know better than to fraternize too cozily at a Chinese trade event.
The 14-page “restricted” report by MI5 Director General, Jonathan Evans, lists attacks on UK defense, energy, communications and manufacturing companies and is the latest and most explicit warning from UK authorities on Chinese espionage. It was sent to hundreds of business leaders in 2009.
Evans’ lobbying led to the creation of the Office of Cyber Security (due to open in March 2010).
The UK only follows the US on this. As far back as June 2009, Barack Obama announced the need for a new official position to oversee cybersecurity in the US, a move applauded by some in the IT community, like McAfee’s Director of Threat Intelligence, Phyllis Schneck, but criticized by others, like Wayne Crews, VP at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who argued that attempts to collectivize and centralize information technology risks were liable to crowd out private enterprise solutions.