The head of the MI5 sent a letter to more than 300 senior executives at banks, accountants and legal firms earlier this week warning them of a web-based attack from Chinese state organisations.
The letter warns that British firms doing business in China are being targeted by the Chinese army, which is using the internet to steal confidential information to benefit Chinese companies.
Full Story »
The background is old, but the willingness of a major intelligence agency to slam the Chinese suggests a much more intense policy. The information was going to become public very quickly, MI5 knew; you cannot keep this kind of warning quiet when you distribute it to a laundry list of people who have not been "read into" secret programs. In fact, there is a school of thought that would say the UK government intended the information to be made public while mainintaining some sort of official deniability. Still, it took some digging by a reporter to unearth the information from the private sector and then to verify it. That qualifies as good journalism.
