There was an excellent book I read: “Stealth War: How China Took Over While America’s Elite Slept” by Gen. Robert Spalding (Ret.) who was the JCS specialist on cyberwarfare.
There is a chapter in that book that is both gut-wrenching, yet morbidly fascinating in which a company that developed a “green” product and was bringing it to market, getting ready to make an IPO, suddenly began having problems.
They were screwing up their shipments, some were mis-filled, some were sent to the wrong location, some were simply not sent at all. The guy in charge of distribution was fired and a new person hired, but the problem persisted.
They had financial difficulties to the point they decided to sell the company, and a Chinese firm came in with a specific offer to buy, which upon analysis, they could only conclude had been created and offered by them with specific knowledge of inside information.
They got suspicious and did an audit. Their networks and systems had been hacked by sources in China.
And what the hackers did in quite sophisticated ways was get into their email system and randomly delete requests for quotes and such. Not all of them. Just some of them. And they deleted various targeted communications both inbound and outbound. They also hacked into their order and distribution system, and changed-not all, just a few...randomly, here and there) the types of things ordered, the quantity ordered, or just simply...deleted an order.
Enough to destroy their customer service capabilities and customer base. But they did it in such a random and targeted way, that normal ways of looking at issues didn’t pick it up.
They also got into their financial systems, which is where they got the specific information to build a targeted offer to buy that really tipped them off.
These were not the tactics employed by your run of the mill corporate saboteurs. Government analysts concluded that it was done by the Chinese government, a military branch, or at least one run like a military branch.
All this, and they weren’t even just trying to “steal the patent” or product. They were openly trying to steal the company with the full power, backing, and support of the Chinese government.
Open, unashamed, economic warfare.
Bkmrk