Threat profileChina

China has invested significant resources in developing its offensive cyber capabilities. It now possesses an extremely large pool of cyber units which are tasked with advancing the state's interests through cyberspace. As a result, China is by far the most active nation in using its offensive cyber capabilities to advance its strategic agenda.

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  • Strategic motives: Espionage, information theft and disruption
  • Strategic goals: Advancing domestic stability, territorial integrity, (military) modernization, economic strength & growth
  • Cyber capabilities: ★★★★☆
  • Number of known cyber operations: ★★★★★
  • Number of APTs: 198

Top-10 Actors

By amount of Operations

Chinese APTs

Our observations

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Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs)

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Tactics, Techniques & Procedures (TTPs)

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Attack tools

SWOT analysis

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats

Strengths

  • Long-term view on using cyber to pursue its strategic agenda
  • Comprehensive set of cyber-related national strategies and policies to achieve strategic goals
  • Extremely large domestic internet market
  • Large scale of cyber units conducting sophisticated cyber operations (e.g. espionage, disruption)
  • Large pool of talented (freelance) hackers that can be recruited for its most advanced cyber units
  • Chinese universities conducting cyber operations to obtain military-civil fusion research and technologies
  • Fast developing digitalization and ICT industry
  • Large scale and high speed development of cyber capabilities and talent

Weaknesses

  • Relatively weak cyber defense capabilities
  • Lagging behind other (Western) states in software production

Opportunities

  • Increased share of domestically produced Chinese internet technologies
  • Opportunity to use Chinese produced technology as an unparalleled intelligence gathering and attack vector
  • Continued high activity in carrying out cyber-attacks using ‘plausible deniability
  • Conducting highly sophisticated supply-chain attacks

Threats

  • Continuous victim of DDoS-attacks
  • Target for foreign nation states actors
  • US and other western countries opposing China’s cyber-related ambitions
  • 'Opportunistic' cyber operations interfering with achieving its long-term strategic goals

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