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China accused of masterminding world’s largest ever cyber-attack campaign

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

August 4, 2011 | 2 min read

Blame for a series of cyber-attacks which targeted 72 organisations including the United Nations, governments and companies has been laid squarely at the door of China by security experts.

The five year operation was uncovered by McAfee and is thought to have netted the Communist state a trove of industrial and national secrets, described as being the work of a single “state actor”.

McAfee’s vice president of threat research said: “Companies and government agencies are getting raped and pillaged every day. They are losing economic advantage and national secrets to unscrupulous competitors. This is the biggest transfer of wealth in terms of intellectual property in history,”

Speaking to The Telegraph James Lewis, a cyber security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said: "Everything points to China. You can think of at least three other large programs attributed to China that look very similar. It's a pattern of activity that we've seen before.”

President Obama has urged the Geneva and Hague conventions governing the conduct of wars to reflect the possibility of attack on civilian installations.

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