The Economist’s second leader this week (Getting Ugly: China’s cyber-hacking) describes the findings of the Mandiant Report (see my posts earlier this week) on the Chinese PLA cyber-hacking into, and stealing information from, a large number of American corporations.
There is nothing to suggest that other organisations have not been targeted, nor is there anything to suggest that only American corporations are targets of this activity, which steals blueprints, negotiating strategies and industrial processes. The Economist echoes an argument I have been making for some time: “all companies need urgently to up grade their defences.” If cyberhackers have been able to successfully penetrate the cyber defences of corporations that should already be well protected – an Internet security company, for example – how much more easily could they penetrate companies in other sectors? Or might already have done so…….
‘An urgent cyber-security upgrade’ is what all CIOs and CISOs should be proposing to their boards and executive committees – marked, with Churchillian urgency: “Action this day!”
