CyberEspionage Threat

China is the biggest espionage threat. Innovation is "key to American competitiveness" and economic success (Collins). New inventions are the key to maintaining the United States' present in the manufacturing game. China's ability to compromise our new inventions is threatening to our manufacturing, national security and the security of our economy. In 20 years the FBI has had a total of four investigations dedicated to Chinese espionage and only one was successful. 'According to Nicholas Eftimiades author of the book "Chinese Intelligence Operations," Chinese espionage is focused on the theft of American technology" (Collins). According to the U.S. Army War College, China has gathered information on electronic warfare systems, navy propulsion systems, stealth technology, and nuclear weapons through espionage. For example, China stole technology for silent submarines from the United States Navy (Brenner 3). The U.S. invested five billion dollars to create this technology, and Chinese hackers stole this critical information for free. The U.S. lacks the money to devlelop a weapon, necessary to maintain a military edge over other countries, and then lose the secret formula rendering the technology antiquated. 

More Examples of Cyber Spying:

• David Yenb, an employee of Valspar, downloaded proprietary paint formulas valued at $20 million with the intent to sell them to China.
• Meng Dong, a DuPont Corp. research chemist, downloaded proprietary information on organic light emitting diodes with the intent of sending them to a Chinese University.
• Yu Xiang Dong, a product engineer with Ford Motors copied 4,000 Ford documents onto an external hard drive with the intent of transferring the data to an auto company in China.
• McAffe Company attributed an intrusion attempt by a company with a Chinese IP address to steal data from a computer system of a petro chemical company.

All examples above come word for word from http://www.manufacturing.net/articles/2012/01/how-china-is-stealing-our-secrets (cited below).

An ad for foreign economic espionage awareness.                                                                                            http://www.ncix.gov/publications/posters/poster_240m_1.php

Brenner, Joel. America the Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digital Espionage, Crime, and Warfare. New York: The Penguin Press, 2011. Print. 

Collins, Mike. "How China Is Stealing Our Secrets." Manufacturing.net. Advantage Business Media, 18 Jan. 2012. Web. 09 Dec. 2012.