Vast majority of global cyber-espionage emanates from China, report finds

Analyses of hundreds of documented data breaches found that hackers affiliated with the Chinese government were by far the most energetic and successful cyberspies in the world last year, according to a report to be issued by government and industry investigators.

Although hackers with financial motives are the most common source of data breaches worldwide, China dominated the category of state-affiliated cyber-espionage of intellectual property, said the 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report. The report was issued by Verizon’s RISK Team and 18 partners, including officials from the United States and several foreign governments. Of 120 incidents of government cyber-espionage detailed in the report, 96 percent came from China; the source of the other 4 percent was unknown, it said. “This is a pretty shocking statistic,” said Wade Baker, the managing principal for the RISK Team, which provides security consulting. The report, issued by Verizon every year since 2008, was the first to break out government-affiliated cyber-espionage as its own category, reflecting the rising numbers of such intrusions and the increasingly sophisticated efforts to determine their origins.