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"A shadowy Chinese army unit is to blame for many of the most effective cyberattacks against the United States, argues a leading cybersecurity firm in a new report.\nSecurity firm Mandiant outed the unit Tuesday in a report issued after tracking individual members of a top Chinese hacking group, which it identifies as \"APT1,\" for six years. Mandiant concluded the group is working with assistance from the Chinese government and is likely People's Liberation Army Unit 61398, a unit dedicated to cyberwar and corporate espionage on the behalf of the Chinese government.\n\"Our analysis has led us to conclude that APT1 is likely government-sponsored and one of the most persistent of China\u2019s cyber threat actors,\" reads Mandiant's report. \"We believe that APT1 is able to wage such a long-running and extensive cyber espionage campaign in large part because it receives direct government support.\"\n\"In seeking to identify the organization behind this activity, our research found that People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA\u2019s) Unit 61398 is similar to APT1 in its mission, capabilities, and resources,\" Mandiant continued. \"PLA Unit 61398 is also located in precisely the same area from which APT1 activity appears to originate.\"\nMaidiant did, tongue in cheek, admit \"one other unlikely possibility\" \u2014 that APT1 is \"a secret, resourced organization full of mainland Chinese speakers with direct access to Shanghai-based telecommunications infrastructure is engaged in a multi-year, enterprise scale computer espionage campaign right outside of Unit 61398\u2019s gates, performing tasks similar to Unit 61398\u2019s known mission.\"\nMandiant first shared its new report with The New York Times, which reported that other security firms as well as at least some in the U.S. intelligence community believe \"these hacking groups are either run by army officers or are contractors working for commands like Unit 61398.\"\nSEE ALSO: Here's What Happens When Chinese Hackers Hit Your Blog\nUnit 61398 is hardly mentioned in official Chinese government reports. It's suspected by security experts of conducting cyberattacks and stealing business secrets from American firms. However, American officials have been wary of citing it by name as that might upset diplomatic relations with China, one of the United States' top trading partners. \nMandiant recently made headlines for working with the Times to identify, understand and eventually root out Chinese hackers that had infiltrated the paper's computer network. \nMandiant's full report is embedded below:\nMandiant APT1 Report by    \n\nPhoto via iStockphoto, FrankvandenBergh"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/02/19/china-army-cyberattacks/>