- Footage shows journalists hounded by People's Liberation Army soldiers
- Targets include aerospace, communications and energy companies
- PLA's Unit 61398 in Shanghai identified as most likely source of attacks
- Situated in banking hub and has thousands of staff proficient in English
- 'Stolen hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 firms since 2006'
- Claims have been made in report by U.S. cyber security firm Mandiant
- Chinese Foreign Ministry has dismissed the claims as 'groundless'
By Daily Mail Reporter
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Chinese soldiers chased American journalists who attempted to shed light on a secretive military unit believed to be behind hacking attacks on the U.S. government.
The journalists were driving away from soldiers of the People's Liberation Army, when the men started chasing the car while journalists were filming.
Video footage from a moving vehicle appears to show the soldiers break into a run, and keep pace with the car, while panicked journalists urge their driver: 'Keep driving. Keep driving, drive away. Drive away!'
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Hounded: The soldiers managed to catch up with the journalists' car as it drove along the street in Shanghai
'Keep going. Drive away, drive away!': The panicked instructions of journalists to their driver as they are chased
The clip has been released following revelations from U.S. security firm Mandiant that the People's Liberation Army's Shanghai-based Unit 61398 is the most likely driving force behind hundreds, if not thousands of cyber attacks.
It said a Shanghai office block is linked to stolen technology blueprints, manufacturing processes, clinical trial results, pricing documents, negotiation strategies and other secret data from the U.S government and more than 100 aerospace, communications and energy companies.
More alarmingly, it claims the unit, known as the Comment Crew, has also made incursions into the computer networks that control oil pipelines, power grids, water plants and other pieces of key state infrastructure.
VIDEO Chinese soldiers chase after American journalists
Hot pursuit: The American journalists were spotted by soldiers from the People's Liberation Army in Shanghai
Chinese soldiers chased the American journalists away from the scene on the streets of Shanghai
'The nature of Unit 61398's work is considered by China to be a state secret,' Mandiant said in a report released in the United States.
'However, we believe it engages in harmful "Computer Network Operations".
'It is time to acknowledge the threat is originating in China and we wanted to do our part to arm and prepare security professionals to combat that threat effectively,' it said.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry today dismissed the report as 'groundless' and said the government firmly opposed hacking.
'Source of attacks': Unit 61398 is located in Shanghai's Pudong district and is staffed by perhaps thousands of people proficient in English as well as computer programming and network operations, the report said
Ground zero: The building, used by the People's Liberation Army, is located on the outskirts of Shanghai
'Hacking attacks are transnational and anonymous. Determining their origins are extremely difficult. We don't know how the evidence in this so-called report can be tenable,' spokesman Hong Lei told a daily news briefing.
'Arbitrary criticism based on rudimentary data is irresponsible, unprofessional and not helpful in resolving the issue.'
Hong cited a Chinese study which pointed to the United States as being behind hacking in China.
'Of the above mentioned Internet hacking attacks, attacks originating from the United States rank first.'
China's Defence Ministry did not immediately respond to faxed questions about the report.
Prolific: The unit, known as Comment Crew, is alleged to have stolen hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organisations across a diverse set of industries beginning as early as 2006
Denial: The Chinese Foreign Ministry today dismissed the report as 'groundless' and said the government firmly opposed hacking
Unit 61398 is located in Shanghai's Pudong district, China's financial and banking hub and is staffed by perhaps thousands of people proficient in English as well as computer programming and network operations, Mandiant said in its report.
The unit had stolen 'hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organisations across a diverse set of industries beginning as early as 2006', it said.
Some 115 of the victims were located in the United States, with smaller numbers in Canada and Britain.
The information stolen ranged from details on mergers and acquisitions to the emails of senior employees, the company said.
Guarded: The company traced Unit 61398's presence on the Internet, including numeric web addresses within a block assigned to the PLA unit
CYBER WARFARE: HOW CHINESE HACKERS ARE TARGETING U.S.
Such is the fear of China's cyber weaponry, American companies have been warned not to do business with two of its leading technology firms because they pose a national security threat.
The House Intelligence Committee said in a report in October that U.S. regulators should block mergers and acquisitions in the country by Huawei Technologies Ltd and ZTE Corp, which are among the world's leading suppliers of telecommunications gear and mobile phones.
Two weeks earlier, the White House revealed that cyber attackers linked to the Chinese government attempted to hack into a computer system in the White House Military Office.
While the official statement down played the attack, one report claimed that the hackers targeted the hardware which safeguards sensitive data like the nuclear launch codes.
The state-run Medicaid system in Utah was also hacked last year, prompting calls for tightened security around any government health databases that would be implemented in accordance with the Affordable Care Act.
While attacks on state infrastructure poses the greatest risk, the effect cyber warfare in the private sector can also be catastrophic.
In November 2011, the National Counterintelligence Committee released a report detailing the extent of damage done by Chinese and Russian hackers on various companies.
One example was that of a paint company called Valspar Corportation, which had a number of its proprietary paint formulas stolen. The move cost the company $20million.?
Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer that produces products sold in America including iPhones, was hacked in February by a group called Swagg Security which then obtained and released the email and credit card data for banking information for American companies including Apple and Microsoft.
Some experts said they doubted Chinese government denials.
'The PLA plays a key role in China's multi-faceted security strategy, so it makes sense that its resources would be used to facilitate economic cyber espionage that helps the Chinese economy,' said Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer and co-founder of CrowdStrike, one of Mandiant's competitors.
Though privately held and little known to the general public, Mandiant is one of a handful of U.S. cyber-security companies that specialise in attempting to detect, prevent and trace the most advanced hacking attacks, instead of the garden-variety viruses and criminal intrusions that befoul corporate networks on a daily basis.
But Mandiant does not promote its analysis in public and only rarely issues topical papers about changes in techniques or behaviours.
It has never before given the apparent proper names of suspected hackers or directly tied them to a military branch of the Chinese government, giving the new report special resonance.
The company published details of the attack programmes and dummy websites used to infiltrate U.S. companies, typically via deceptive emails.
U.S. officials have complained in the past to China about sanctioned trade-secret theft, but have had a limited public record to point to.
Mandiant said it knew the PLA would shift tactics and programmes in response to its report, but concluded that the disclosure was worth it because of the scale of the harm and the ability of China to issue denials in the past and duck accountability.
The company traced Unit 61398's presence on the Internet - including registration data for a question-and-answer session with a Chinese professor and numeric Internet addresses within a block assigned to the PLA unit - and concluded that it was a major contributor to operations against the U.S. companies.
Members of Congress and intelligence authorities in the United States have publicised the same general conclusions: that economic espionage is an official mission of the PLA and other elements of the Chinese government, and that hacking is a primary method.
In November 2011, the U.S. National Counterintelligence Executive publicly decried China in particular as the biggest known thief of U.S. trade secrets.
The Mandiant report comes a week after U.S. President Barack Obama issued a long-awaited executive order aimed at getting the private owners of power plants and other critical infrastructure to share data on attacks with officials and to begin to follow consensus best practices on security.
Both U.S. Democrats and Republicans have said more powerful legislation is needed, citing Chinese penetration not just of the largest companies but of operations essential to a functioning country, including those comprising the electric grid.
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