It seems that the disturbed relation between China and the U.S. over commercial cyberespionage has shown some sort of improvement.
A report published in Washington Post confirms that the Chinese government has arrested hackers, who had been identified by the U.S. officials as they stole commercial secrets from its firms to be sold or passed along to Chinese state-run companies, as per the request of the U.S. government.
However, the Chinese government did not public the details about those hackers. And the government has also clarified that arrests were not related to a mass sweep launched by the Chinese government in July in which authorities as of early September had arrested about 15,000 people in the charge of hacking, sending spam text messages and online scams.
The news report says that the Chinese government took the step in order to improve its relation with the U.S.
“For years, U.S. firms and officials have said Beijing hasn’t done enough to crack down on digital larceny. Experts estimate that Chinese industrial hacking costs U.S. firms tens of billions of dollars annually,” the report read.
However, White House and intelligence officials have not confirmed the arrests.
According to the news report, a senior administration official provided a statement, “As the president has said, we have repeatedly raised our concerns regarding cybersecurity with the Chinese, and we will continue to use all of our engagements to address our concerns directly with the Chinese.”
On September 25 the U.S.-China cyber-agreement announced under which both countries would cooperate “with requests to investigate cybercrimes” and “collect electronic evidence” and to mitigate malicious cyber-activities coming from their territory.
“Particularly now that we have reached this agreement with the Chinese, we should hold them at their word and see what they’re willing to do,” the U.S. official told Washington Post. “We have maintained all along that what we want to see is actions.”
