Chinese companies believed to be benefiting from stolen secrets could be the next target of U.S. action to curb industrial espionage.
Earlier this week the U.S. Department of Justice indicted five Chinese military officers for industrial espionage, accusing them of leading attacks on the computers of U.S. companies including U.S. Steel and Westinghouse to gather material to be passed on to Chinese companies.
The move puts U.S. policy in line with experts who have argued that only naming and shaming the perpetrators, and pursuing them through legal action, will rein in such attacks. Digital IP theft is now normal for U.S companies, although few victims disclose the fact.
Dmitri Alperovitch, cofounder and chief technology officer (see “TR35: Dmitri Alperovitch”) of the security company Crowdstrike, a company that offers new ways to trace and fight back against cyberattacks, told MIT Technology Review’s Tom Simonite how the U.S. could use its new strategy to increase the pressure on China even further.