Cyber criminals within China are most active when it comes to trying to gain access to U.S. intelligence, but perpetrators in Russia are not far behind, according to a Thursday report.
"Chinese actors are the world's most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage, according to a report from the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX). "U.S. private sector firms and cybersecurity specialists have reported an onslaught of computer network intrusions that have originated in China, but the [intelligence community] cannot confirm who was responsible."
ONCIX is required by law to submit an annual report to Congress that assesses the threat to U.S. industry from foreign economic collection and industrial espionage. This year's report focused more on cyber-related activities given that most business records, research results, and other sensitive data exist primarily in digital form.
In addition to China, the report found that "Russia's intelligence services are conducting a range of activities to collect economic information and technology from U.S. targets."
What type of data do they want? ONCIX found that the greatest interest focused on four categories: information and communications technology; business information about scarce natural resources that might help foreign countries during negotiations with U.S. businesses; military technologies like marine systems and unmanned aerial vehicles; and emerging tech industries like clean energy and healthcare.
The report suggested that this type of activity will only grow in the coming years, particularly as more and more people buy Internet-enabled devices like smartphones and tablets.
"We judge that the governments of China and Russia will remain aggressive and capable collectors of sensitive U.S. economic information and technologies, particularly in cyberspace," the report concluded.
It also depends on who is in charge in a given country. "One or more fast-growing regional powers may judge that changes in its economic and political interests merit the risk of aggressive cyber and other espionage against U.S. technologies and economic information," researchers found.
It's not just major government players manning these computers, however. "Cyberspace provides relatively small-scale actors an opportunity to become players in economic espionage," the report found. "Underresourced governments or corporations could build relationships with hackers to develop customized malware or remote-access exploits to steal sensitive US economic or technology information, just as certain [foreign intelligence services] have already done."
The report also warned that disgruntled insiders are likely to leak data to hacktivist groups like WikiLeaks.
Last week, a preview of an upcoming report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said that U.S. government satellites were compromised at least four times in 2007 and 2008, possibly at the hands of Chinese computer hackers with ties to the country's military.
Despite evidence to the contrary, China has repeatedly denied any involvement in the hacking of foreign governments. As noted by MSNBC, a recent report from Desmond Ball, a professor in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, finds that China has "very destructive but relatively unsophisticated cyber-warfare capabilities."