Security firm CrowdStrike Inc. is reporting that seven different U.S. companies have been attacked by Chinese hackers since that date despite signing a no-hack pact last month. The no-hack deliberately omitted a clause that would not allow both US and China to hacking each other for national or political purposes. Even taking that into consideration, CrowdStrike believes the hackers in this instance were state-sponsored, the attacks appeared to be far more commercial. Firms hit included five U.S. tech and two pharmaceutical companies, all of which CrowdStrike claims were protected due to its software being readily available to shield them. “We’ve seen no change in behavior,” said Dmitri Alperovich, a founder of CrowdStrike who wrote one of the first public accounts of commercial cyberespionage linked to China in 2011. First of the attacks came on Sept. 26, CrowdStrike says, just a day after President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced their deal in the White House Rose Garden. CrowdStrike, which employs former FBI and National Security Agency cyberexperts, did not name the corporate victims, citing client confidentiality. And the company says it detected and thwarted the attacks before any corporate secrets were stolen. A senior Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to discuss the matter publicly, said officials are aware of the report but would not comment on its conclusions. The official however did not dispute them.
