Ms Payne and Mr Dutton said: “Today, the Australian government joins other international partners in expressing serious concern about a global campaign of cyber-enabled commercial intellectual property theft by a group known as APT10, acting on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of State Security.
“The sustained cyber intrusions by APT10 were significant and focussed on large scale Managed Service Providers (MSPs) – specialist companies that manage IT services and infrastructure for many medium to large businesses and organisations, both in Australia and globally.
“When it is in our interests to do so, Australia publicly attributes cyber incidents, especially those with the potential to undermine global economic growth, national security and international stability.
“Australia calls on all countries – including China – to uphold commitments to refrain from cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, trade secrets and confidential business information with the intent of obtaining a competitive advantage. These commitments were agreed by G20 Leaders in 2015. Australia and China reaffirmed them bilaterally in 2017.”
An investigation by The Australian Financial Review and Nine News in November confirmed China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), is responsible for what is known in cyber circles as “Operation Cloud Hopper”, a wave of attacks detected by Australia and its partners in the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance.
The US Department of Justice has ramped up its investigation and prosecution of Chinese cyber hackers this year, and over the weekend US Vice-President Mike Pence again accused China of “intellectual property theft” as part of an escalating trade and strategic battle with Beijing.
The alleged persistent hacking attacks breach an agreement struck between China’s Premier Li Keqiang and former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to not steal each other’s commercial secrets.
The government has issued advice for businesses and organisations on what to do at www.cyber.gov.au.
More to come.
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