No watershed: China hacker groups in decline before Xi-Obama deal The US-China pledge to put an end to state-backed intellectual property theft was made when Middle Kingdom hacking groups had been receding for more than a year, researchers say. Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping agreed September to not "conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property" in a move …
"That Chinese paid and patriot hacking groups were already in decline led iSight security intelligence wonks to rob the agreement of its watershed title of "cybercrime killer"."
Hmm. It must be obvious even to this think-tank that such agreements as the one in this instance between the leaders of the US and China do not happen overnight. There is usually a long process via diplomatic back-channels and at relatively low (and therefore deniable) levels. One possible interpretation is that there were "confidence building measures" undertaken to ensure that both sides could feel confident that neither leader would subjected to "surprises" and end up covered in political ooh-nasty. It would therefore be entirely logical that (looking back) signs of a reduction of such activity would occur for a significant period of time before the leaders of both nations gave their official blessing to it in the form of a signed agreement.
Entirely possible which is one reason why I wrote "One possible interpretation is that....". I always have reservations if hard and fast conclusions are drawn when the evidence is in fact ambiguous. My point is simply that they have not made their case if it is possible to argue, based on the same general evidence, an alternative explanation.
Once again, you take the word of only one organization. Instead of using more than one source to collaborate data. Even so, you never investigate the matter fully to figure out why... you just take their word as gospel. WHY is a big part of journalism.
In some circles of state sponsored Chinese hacking against government networks there has been a decline... but nowhere near what is being presented by this article. The real data, Chinese hacking groups and memberships are classified, and even if you received it from USSTRATCOM or CYBERCOM, it wouldn't provide it in this manner.
China works all angles to get around any agreements, and the Obama administration is about as forthcoming with the truth in cybersecurity as they were when he stated you could keep your own doctor or ensuring Hillary maintained government guidelines on her own servers.
If a hacking group reorganizes or changes names and locations... apparently this wayword organization sees this as being removed from the Chinese hacking ranks? Or if they stop hacking US Government networks and go after privately owned networks, they don't show up anymore? Or a few other scenarios I wont name.
Don't be naïve in thinking China is going to stop going after the hard work laid down by other countries. It's what they do. They don't have the research and development budgets we do. Even the cars they develop are knockoffs of something created in the US, Japan or Europe.
They'll switch things up, and numbers will be reported differently, but don't be out fooled for a moment when it comes to China.
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