When the British Secret Service tells you to watch out, it makes sense to listen. The UK’s MI5 has sent out letters to banks and financial institutions warning them of possible threats to their sensitive information. Hackers in China, the MI5 asserts, just might have their sights trained on that data.

What’s intriguing is that MI5’s director-general, Jonathan Evans, took the step of sending out the letters to make the point that private institutions were just as much at risk as government computers. FT reported him saying in his first public speech that foreign countries were spending "considerable time and energy…to obtain political and economic intelligence at our (the UK’s) expense."

Before this, China’s hackers have been blamed for attacks on U.S. government computers, with Netwarcom officials asserting the attacks probably had government support. In a FCW.com story, an unnamed senior official was quoted as saying that despite the impossibile task of proving that belief,  “it’s hard to believe it’s not government-driven.”

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Entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 11:30 am under Security.

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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