14 DAY TRIAL // According US diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and published in the media recently, a series of cyber espionage attacks dating back to 2006 trace back to a specialized unit of China's People's Liberation Army.
According to Reuters, dubbed "Byzantine Hades" by U.S. investigators, the cyber attacks managed to siphon terabytes of sensitive data from computers belonging to government agencies and contractors.
In a cable dated April 2009, the US State Department's Cyber Threat Analysis Division wrote that websites involved in Byzantine Hades breaches back in 2006 were registered using a special postal code in Chengdu that corresponds to People's Liberation Army Chengdu Province First Technical Reconnaissance Bureau (TRB).
Part of the People's Liberation Army's Third Department, the reconnaissance bureaus are tasked with defending against and engaging in electronic surveillance.
The report comes to enforce the opinion of many security experts who have warned about state-sponsored cyber espionage attacks originating from China.
In March 2009, researchers from the Information Warfare Monitor released a report about a large-scale Chinese cyber spying operation they codenamed "GhostNet."
The operation is said to have targeted embassies, foreign ministers and government offices in 103 countries around the world.
At the end of 2009, another cyber espionage operation, later dubbed "Operation Aurora," was discovered. It affected over 30 Fortune 500 companies and resulted in Google closing its offices in mainland China.
Another US State Department cable leaked earlier this year quoted a Chinese informant as saying that Operation Aurora was ordered by China's Politburo (Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China).
More recently, yet another Chinese cyber spying op was uncovered. Dubbed "Night Dragon," it targeted international oil and energy giants and stole exploration bid data that reveals the likely locations of natural resources.
In February this year, Bloomberg reported that, according to unnamed sources familiar with the investigation, Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc are among the victims.