Q: On May 4, the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center of China issued a report entitled “‘Empire of Hacking’: The US Central Intelligence Agency - Part I”, disclosing some typical cyber security incidents occurred in China and other countries, analyzing the CIA's cyber attacks, stealing operations and espionage activities. I notice that Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China has responded to that. Do you have any further comment?

A: I have noted the report. To be frank, the content is shocking and chilling.

For example, according to the report, in 2020, the 360 Total Security (360) discovered a new APT group, named APT-C-39, which specifically targeted China and her allies as the attack objectives. APT-C-39 had used multiple cyber weapons leaked from “Vault7”, the secret documents from the CIA cyber intelligence center, which were disclosed by Wikileaks, to attack targets from China and other countries till now since 2011. And the affected industry sectors are including critical information systems and infrastructure, aerospace and astronautics, scientific research institutions, petroleum industry, internet companies, and government agencies. This report also shows many backdoors and exploitation tool suites used by CIA.

In April, the China Cybersecurity Industry Alliance issued a report disclosing over 10 cases in which US intelligence agencies launched cyber attacks, carried out internet monitoring and espionage, and leaked and proliferated cyberattack weapons and tools since 2010, including Stuxnet virus, PRISM, Project CAMBERDADA etc.. Last September, the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center of China released investigation reports which showed that the US used 41 specialized cyber weapons to launch cyber theft operations for over 1,000 times against Northwestern Polytechnical University and stole core technical data.

“The day has eyes, the night has ears.” These cases disclosed by the reports once again show that the US intelligence agencies have been conducting cyber attacks around the world for a long time, and the US is the origin of cyber warfare, the biggest spreader of advanced cyber weapons and the biggest global cyber thief. The so-called Clean Network and what the US calls “technology that reflects democratic values and interests” are just a pretext for it to unscrupulously conduct cyber thefts and attacks and ensure its supremacy. The US has been holding other countries to high standards, but clearly these standards mean little to the US itself. This is textbook double standards.

Cyberspace is the common home of mankind. Cybersecurity threats are a common challenge faced by all countries, and safeguarding cybersecurity is the shared responsibility of the international community. The US must take seriously and respond to the concerns from the international community, cease and desist, stop using cyber weapons to carry out espionage and cyber attacks around the world, and to work with the international community to build up and maintain peace, security, openness, cooperation and order in cyberspace.