While the country’s attention has been focused on Russian hacking attacks, China has been getting to work. And it’s not at all hiding its intent to threaten a handful of U.S. industries.

China’s hacking operation needs much more attention in the U.S., my colleague Kyle Alspach reports. And the first step to addressing the threat is to acknowledge that there is one at all.

• State-sponsored hacks accounted for nearly 70% of attacks between mid-2020 and mid-2021, compared to just 1% for the Russian government.
• China isn’t being coy about which industries it’s targeting, either: AI, electric vehicles and quantum computing are all on the list. Some industries are aware of China’s intentions, others, not so much, CTM Insights’ Lou Steinberg told Kyle.
• “Look at that list, and that lines up with what they're going to try to steal,” Kyle told me.

Why are we just talking about this now? Russia’s hacking threat has dominated the conversation over much of the past year, and it really wasn’t until the FBI issued a warning last month that people started raising eyebrows.

• Experts told Kyle that defense strategies against China look a little different than ones implemented against Russia because their priorities are different. In this case, companies should concern themselves with data-loss prevention tech and other protections to systems hosting intellectual property.
• It may also be a good idea to invest in threat hunting, because, according to CrowdStrike’s Adam Meyers, “you have to be out there looking for these threats.”

Unless companies take action to protect themselves from hackers now, they’re not going to know whether China got ahold of their information until it’s too late.

— Sarah Roach