It would be even more surprising if the PLA did not resort to cyberspying
As the inventor of information warfare, the US should not be at all surprised that other nations - including China - are following suit
An investigative report released recently by Mandiant, a US IT security firm, predictably sparked controversy by pinning the blame for a series of cyberattacks on US companies on Shanghai-based Unit 61398 of the People's Liberation Army.
Some critics, such as the popular columnist Alex Lo, have expressed incredulity that such professional cyberwarriors would leave the kind of digital fingerprints that will allow them to be traced back to Shanghai. And isn't it hypocritical for the US to get worked up about these attacks when they have been invading and attacking others for years? Lo also points out that Mandiant's report was not peer-reviewed. Let's deal with these points one by one.
In fact, PLA hackers did successfully cover their tracks in many cases. The report by Mandiant details how hackers successfully destroyed evidence of their crimes; routinely deleting archives of files which they compressed before downloading them from compromised computers. Thus it was often impossible to tell what they had stolen.
But a large group of hackers cannot hide industrial-scale hacking indefinitely. They spoofed their IP addresses and covered their tracks, but hacking and computer security is an evolving cat-and-mouse game in which it's inevitable that both sides will make mistakes.
The initial advantage is with the attackers, as the internet favours anonymity - and the rise of mobile computing and premature software releases constantly creates new attack opportunities. Governments and commercial security policies usually lag behind.
Unit 61398 has fluent English speakers who write phishing e-mails to unsuspecting targets with virus-loaded attachments. China's pool of such talent is much larger than America's supply of Mandarin speakers.
