In Depth

Nation States' Espionage and Counterespionage

An overview of the 2007 Global Economic Espionage Landscape

By Christopher Burgess

It's disturbing to see a pattern of the intelligence apparatus utilizing coercion in acquiring the services of individuals believed to have access to information of interest to the MSS and other services within China. It would appear that a decision has been made to use any and all leverage points to acquire the intellectual property or trade secrets of others.

Hans Elmar Remberg, the vice president of Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, or BfV), which is Germany's internal intelligence organization, was quoted in February 2007 by the Financial Times Deutschland as saying, "The Russian services operate primarily in the classic form, with agents; the Chinese are mainly active in the electronic sector."

In August 2007, on the eve of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in China, Spiegel magazine reported that a significant cyber attack on computers within the Germany Chancellery, as well as the foreign, economic and research ministries, had been discovered by Remberg's organization in May 2007. In this instance, the information was siphoned off the German government's machines utilizing Trojan horse programs that sent German government data via the Internet to what is believed to be a People's Liberation Army-supported locus of the attack, located in Lanzhou, Canton province and Beijing. While the German government does not know exactly how much information was stolen, some estimates are in the terabytes, and German security officials were able to thwart a 160 gigabyte data transfer. German security officials also said they estimate 40% of all German companies have been victims of nation-state-sponsored industrial espionage, with the majority of the activities originating from Russia and China.

Then in October 2007, Remberg spoke on the probability of the Chinese state being involved in electronic espionage attacks upon Germany. Remberg noted, "Supporting this view is the intensity, structure and scope of the attacks, and above all the targets, which include [German[ authorities and companies." Remberg continued, "Some people call this the Chinese cyber war. Across the world, the People's Republic of China is intensively gathering political, military, corporate-strategic and scientific information in order to bridge their technological gaps as quickly as possible."

Remberg's comments clearly indicate his understanding that it is not just German companies and industries at risk. Is Remberg's organization, the BfV, providing specific, actionable information required to adequately protect itself against the Chinese threat, or any other?

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