Dive Brief:
- China may have tried to hack at least seven U.S. companies since the two countries agreed to an anti-spying pact three weeks ago, Reuters reported.
- Security firm CrowdStrike said it found evidence of attempted hacking at five tech firms and two pharmaceutical companies.
- CrowdStrike said it believes the attacks originated from the Chinese government based on servers and software employed in the attacks.
Dive Insight:
CrowdStrike said it notified the White House of its findings. The targeted companies were not named.
The "primary benefits of the intrusion seem clearly aligned to facilitate theft of intellectual property and trade secrets, rather than to conduct traditional, national-security-related intelligence collection," CrowdStrike said in a blog post.
On Sept. 25, President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed that neither government would knowingly support cyber theft of corporate secrets to support domestic businesses.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that the Chinese government opposed all forms of hacking or stealing commercial secrets.
A White House official said they are keeping tabs on the situation.
"As we move forward, we will monitor China’s cyber activities closely and press China to abide by all of its commitments," the official said.
