The Trump administration has expanded U.S. government efforts to impose costs on China over its economic espionage. Together, they make up 54 percent of cases. Just as our adversaries evolve, so, too, must the FBI. But the interconnectedness of the modern world, combined with the anonymity of the Internet, have changed the nature of the threat and how the FBI and its partners must address it. The FBI uses all lawful investigative techniques and methods to combat these terrorist threats to the United States. Terrorists in ungoverned spacesboth physical and virtualreadily disseminate propaganda and training materials to attract easily influenced individuals around the world to their cause. Cyber espionage: Russian state-sponsored groups have been implicated in a range of cyber espionage activities against Ukraine, including stealing sensitive government and military data, intellectual property, and other confidential information. Sixty-three people were killed and thousands injured. Senior administration officials made clear prior to President Trumps recent trade policy-focused meeting with Chinese President Xi that reductions in IP theft are a major administration priority, and reductions in Chinese IP theft should be a be a major U.S. demand in the U.S.-China trade negotiations that will occur over the next three months. Illegal downloads. Just $5 a month. China has aggressively targeted technologies central to its Made in China 2025 industrial strategy, a fact that should come as little surprise given the importance China attaches to the strategy. At a minimum, there is no indication that the CCP or Chinese government have taken any measures to impede the illegal activities (illegal in the United States) of their state corporations and citizens. $500,000 fine, and/or not more than 15 years in Federal prison Simultaneously, over the last year, propaganda from al Qaeda leaders seeks to inspire individuals to conduct their own attacks in the U.S. and the West. The Espionage Act was amended in 1940 to increase the penalties it imposed, and again in 1970. I will also briefly touch on Chinas espionage tools with respect to U.S. universities and other non-governmental organizations here in the United States and in allied nations. Unsurprisingly, China is also targeting sectors critical to U.S. military dominance, like aerospace, according to a recent indictment. The International Trade Commission (ITC) has authority under Section 337 to investigate claims that an import uses stolen U.S. IP and to exclude infringing products, and has excluded a number of Chinese products in recent years. For example, if China purchased this information, it could cross-reference location information with data it stole from the Office of Personnel Management about U.S. government employees, or against public record data about corporate executives. We have also been confronting a surge in terrorist propaganda and training available via the Internet and social media. Note as much as possible As the committee is well aware, the frequency and severity of malicious cyber activity on our nations private sector and government networks have increased dramatically in the past decade when measured by the amount of corporate data stolen or deleted, the volume of personally identifiable information compromised, or the remediation costs incurred by U.S. victims. Regardless of the method or activity, Foreign Intelligence Entities seek one thing: to learn more about the Department of Defense plans in order to exploit its information and impede its mission. Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Feinstein, and Honorable Members of the Committee, it is a pleasure to be invited to speak to you today about one of the most important trade and national security issues that the U.S. confronts today: Chinas unconventional espionage against the United States. Although the Obama administration never sanctioned any Chinese individuals or companies using these authorities, it did use the potent threat of sanctions, as well as criminal prosecutions and significant high-level diplomatic engagement, to convince China to enter into a 2015 agreement in which Chinese President Xi agreed that China would not knowingly support cyber-enabled theft intellectual property for commercial gain. However, the threat posed by terrorismboth international terrorism (IT) and domestic violent extremismhas evolved significantly since 9/11. View, About Foreign Intelligence Threats Traditional FIE Activity includes: Foreign Intelligence Entities operating The first is economic espionage, which is intended to provide China with commercial advantage over U.S. firms. While continued counterterrorism pressure has degraded the groups Afghanistan-Pakistan senior leadership, in the near term, al Qaeda is more likely to focus on building its international affiliates and supporting small-scale, readily achievable attacks in key regions such as east and west Africa. This initiative will also work to use tools like the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) to require better disclosure of Chinese activities across the United States. Foreign travel of short duration In nearly 25 percent of cases, individuals employed encryption for communications and/or hosted meetings in China to avoid detection by U.S. law enforcement. The United States charged the group with stealing airline engine technology from French and U.S. companies. But China is by far the most active practitioner of economic espionage today. Last month, under former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Department of Justice expanded on several years of increasing prosecutorial efforts by launching an important new initiative to combat Chinese economic espionage, which Assistant Attorney General Demers is leading. But recent FBI cases have shown that no industry, large or small, is immune to the threat. Copying files, unexplained absences, terminating employment, Counterintelligence Awareness & Reporting Cou, CI Awareness and Reporting Briefing Assessment, Counterintelligence Awareness and Reporting f, Level I Antiterrorism Awareness (JS-US007), J3OP-US261-HB Emergency Preparedness Response, TEMA 28: Bacterias de interes biotecnologic. Outright theft of U.S. and western intellectual property (IP) is a key piece of Chinas strategy, but it is only a piece. FBI agents, analysts, and computer scientists are using technical capabilities and traditional investigative techniquessuch as sources, court- authorized electronic surveillance, physical surveillance, and forensicsto counter these threats. Change the conversation Asia, Asia : the practice of spying or using spies to obtain information about the plans and activities especially of a foreign government or a competing company industrial espionage Synonyms spying See all Synonyms & Antonyms in Thesaurus Example Sentences The industry-leading media platform offering competitive intelligence to prepare for today and anticipate opportunities for future success. Our adversary seeks to expand its An official website of the United States government. A joint effort would provide an integrated approach to disrupt China's espionage activities which generally fall into one (or more) of five categories: Traditional espionage (18 USC 792-799 . The United States has progressively expanded the scope of sanctions and entity-based export controls on Chinese persons (i.e., individuals and entities), primaril By An official website of the United States government. In recent years we have broadly seen two types of Chinese espionage targeting U.S. colleges and universities. Some U.S. companies have also succeeded in obtaining court orders in other countries to prohibit Chinese companies from selling products based on stolen U.S. IP in those markets. That said, I recommend that Congress carefully consider hacking back proposals that would enable U.S. companies to take a broader range of active measures to defend themselves against cyber espionage and other cyber attacks. Just last month, a new law reorganized the cyber security operations of DHS in order to improve their effectiveness, including establishing DHSs Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. These diverse threats underscore the complexity and breadth of the FBIs mission: to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States. Foreign influence operationswhich may include covert actions by foreign governments to influence U.S. policy decisions, political sentiment or public discourseare not a new problem. In addition to beaming out its perspectives via Chinese state media, Beijing is aspiring to control both the structure and norms of global information networks. We remain concerned that groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (ISIS) and al Qaeda have the intent to carry out large-scale attacks in the U.S. In 2016 broad bipartisan majorities of Congress passed the Defend Trade Secrets Act, which expanded the rights of U.S. companies to sue Chinese firms and other foreign competitors that steal their IP. In the spotting phase the foreign intelligence officer identifies the target. Counterintelligence Awarness Briefing - United States Naval Academy In recent years, prolific use of social media by FTOs has greatly enhanced their ability to disseminate messages. CCP embedded committees manage all actions within directly managed SOEs. Chinas defense industry is working to develop a comparable engine. The world of espionage is facing tremendous technological, political, legal, social, and commercial changes. Traditional espionage, often characterized by career foreign intelligence officers acting as diplomats or ordinary citizens, and asymmetric espionage, typically carried out by students, researchers, or businesspeople operating front companies, is prevalent. Our adversariesterrorists, foreign intelligence services, and criminalstake advantage of modern technology to hide their communications; recruit followers; and plan, conduct, and encourage espionage, cyber attacks, or terrorism to disperse information on different methods to attack the U.S. homeland and to facilitate other illegal activities. Due to online recruitment, indoctrination, and instruction, FTOs are no longer dependent on finding ways to get terrorist operatives into the United States to recruit and carry out acts of terrorism. Reporting threats to your Facility Security Officer or Supervisor. Concealing foreign travel By Barry Black and Jonathan Robert Nelson, Shearman and Hogan Lovells Call Off Merger Talks, Early Reports: 2023 Am Law 200 Financials, Beyond Excess Capacity, Pooled Services and Automation Expedite Staff Layoffs, Dozens of Law Firms Grew Their Equity Partner Tier, Even as Profits and Demand Plummeted. One might expect poor tradecraft from nonprofessional intelligence entities such as individuals, companies, and SOEs. Foreign Intelligence Agency-What do they want? U.S. policymakers however, have rightly sought to aggressively deter and punish Chinese espionage intended to steal trade secrets and other IP from the U.S. private sector that is then transferred to Chinese companies for commercial advantage, and to crack down on other forms of unconventional espionage that threaten Americas technological, economic, and military edge. Foreign states are generally equipped to conduct the most damaging cyber espionage and computer network attacks. And getting access to this information would not even really be espionage as we typically think of it--the Chinese could simply set up a front company to buy the data commercially. Copying files As part of this process, the FBI provides input and analysis to the National Intelligence Council within eight days of a CFIUS filing and a risk assessment to the Department of Justice within 30 days of a CFIUS filing. Which of the following is an example of an anomaly? As part of a nationwide campaign to raise awareness of the growing economic espionage threat, the FBI has released a short video, "The Company Man: Protecting Americas Secrets." Foreign intelligence Entities seldom use elicitation to extract information from people who have access to classified or sensitive information. Many foreign terrorist organizations use various digital communication platforms to reach individuals they believe may be susceptible and sympathetic to violent terrorist messages. As former Cisco CEO John Chambers once said, There are two types of companies: those who have been hacked, and those who don't yet know they have been hacked.. Journalists, military veterans, and judicial figures are being targeted by foreign espionage agencies at "unprecedented" levels, with the country's intelligence chief revealing a "hive of spies . Asia, Southeast Dynamically explore and compare data on law firms, companies, individual lawyers, and industry trends. But China does not only steal corporate crown jewels like trade secrets: It targets a wide variety of information that can provide Chinese companies with commercial advantage. The intelligence officer may begin by accessing the corporate web page to identify candidates to target via emails or social engineering. Based on an actual case, The Company Man: Protecting Americas Secrets illustrates how one U.S. company was targeted by foreign spies and how that company worked with the FBI to bring the perpetrators to justice. That Act prohibits the theft of trade secrets in which the perpetrator acts intending or knowing that the offense will benefit a foreign government. Proposals to allow hacking back are controversial because it is often difficult for a hacking victim to conclusively identify a hacker and there is concern that companies could hack back against an innocent party that was not actually involved in the original hacking. Sanctions need to be deployed carefully to avoid unintended consequences and, at least initially, should be used only against egregious violators. The target is now hooked. This week Emily Kilcrease, director of the Energy, Economics, and Security program at CNAS, joins The Asia Chessboard podcast from CSIS for a wide ranging discussion on the i By Victims of Chinas espionage efforts include major defense and aerospace companies, pharmaceutical firms, technology research companies, manufacturers, and universities. Section 951 encompasses any activity by an "agent of a foreign government," which is defined as "an individual who agrees to operate within the United States subject to the direction or. But government tools must also be an important part of the U.S. government response. In some of those cases (perhaps 20 percent), there was a clearly identifiable Chinese government or SOE as the ultimatecustomer for illegal exports or trade secrets. Espionage, as that term is traditionally used, involves trained intelligence professionals In addition to its investigative work, the FBI works to raise public awareness and inform industry of the threats they face, through outreach activities. Cleared contractor facility Attempting to gain access, without need-to-know The Company Man: Protecting Americas Secrets, Economic Espionage: Protecting America's Trade Secrets, The Insider Threat: An Introduction to Detecting and Deterring and Insider Spy, Intellectual Property Protection: Safeguard Your Company's Trade Secrets, Proprietary Information, and Research, Safety and Security for the Business Professional Traveling Abroad, Safety and Security for U.S. Students Traveling Abroad, Higher Education and National Security: The Targeting of Sensitive, Proprietary, and Classified Information on Campuses of Higher Education, Best Practices in Supply Chain Risk Management for the U.S. Government, Two U.S. Citizens Arrested for Illegally Exporting Technology to Russia, Civil Forfeiture Complaint Filed Against Six Luxury Real Estate Properties Involved in Sanctions Evasion and Money Laundering, Russian National Charged with Supplying U.S. Technology to the Russian and North Korean Governments, Corrected: Four Florida Men Arrested in Plot to Kill Haitian President, Grand Jury Returns Indictment Against 11, U.S. Citizen Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison for Conspiring to Provide Electronic Equipment and Technology to the Government of Iran, Associate of Sanctioned Oligarch Indicted for Sanctions Evasion and Money Laundering, Chinese National Sentenced to Eight Years in Prison for Acting Within the U.S. as an Unregistered Agent of the Peoples Republic of China, Former Special Agent in Charge of the FBI New York Counterintelligence Division Charged with Violating U.S. Sanctions on Russia, FBI.gov is an official site of the U.S. Department of Justice, Protect the secrets of the U.S. Intelligence Community, Protect the nations critical assets, like our advanced technologies and sensitive information in the defense, intelligence, economic, financial, public health, and science and technology sectors, Keep weapons of mass destruction from falling into the wrong hands. The foreign intelligence threat to the United States is expanding, becoming more complex and less predictable. I appreciate your continued support and look forward to answering any questions you might have. Recruiting personnel for a terrorist organization The objective of this espionage was to steal intellectual data and confidential business information about the engine. Unusual work hours The Intelligence Authorization Act further specifies three aspects of the threat to US industry to be reported and any trends in that threat to include (1) the number and identity of the foreign governments conducting foreign industrial espionage; (2) the industrial sectors and types of information and technology targeted by such espionage; and It is seen by many who enter messaging apps and participate in social networks. NPR's Leila Fadel talks to Rachel Ziemba of the Center for a New American Security about sanctions which have failed to dramatically weaken Russia's economy, and its ability t By The Administration and Congress should also look for ways to make these kinds of tools multilateral, working with foreign governments to ensure that foreign countries do not import products made with stolen U.S. IP and that the U.S. does not import products made with stolen foreign IP. Death, Theft of Trade Secrets for a Foreign Govenment, Penalty for individual The U.S. Intelligence Community is a federation of executive branch agencies and organizations that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities necessary for the conduct of foreign relations and the protection of the national security of the United States. Chinese military sources can tell us exactly what the PLA is learning. Several high-level conclusions can be drawn from the cases representing the last 20 years of Chinese espionage operations. CI-21 proposes significant changes in the way the United States government approaches, and organizes itself to meet, the threat of foreign espionage and intelligence gathering. Do not prove for information - nonchalantly ask questions about them. The Trump administration should also continue deploying regulatory tools such as the October Commerce Department Action against Fujian Jinhua to impose real costs on Chinese companies that seek to benefit from economic espionage. The Department of Justice has even indicted Chinese spies for stealing strategy information from a U.S. labor union that strongly opposed Chinese trade practices. Money, Tokyo Traditional espionage, often characterized by career foreign intelligence officers acting as diplomats or ordinary citizens, and asymmetric espionage, typically carried out by students,. The poor performance in oversight and case management is possibly due to the highly politicized nature (CCP management) of Chinese intelligence. An adversary conducts activities with precision that indicates prior knowledge. China-Based Customers Conducting Espionage Activities. Espionage and foreign interference pose a significant threat to our economic prosperity and national interests. While the U.S. government and defense contractors must continue to harden their defenses against Chinese espionage and the U.S. government must work aggressively to root out, expel, and prosecute Chinese spies, the framework for addressing this kind of espionage is well developed. These activities support a national concerted effort to expand Chinas economic and security interests. On a daily basis, these actors seek to steal our state secrets, our trade secrets, our technology, and the most intimate data about our citizensthings of incredible value to all of us and of great importance to the conduct of our government business and our national security. Chinese economic espionage, on the other hand, is an unconventional threat and requires an unconventional response. Economic espionage activities . The U.S. recently charged Chinese spies and companies with trying to steal trade secrets from the semiconductor industry, and charged a Chinese agent with collecting information on Chinese nationals working in the U.S. for possible recruitment by Chinas spy agencies. Women, Influence & Power in Law UK Awards 2023, Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Awards 2023, WORKERS COMPENSATION ATTORNEY - Hartford, CT, Offering an Opportunity of a Lifetime for Personal Injury Lawyers, What Does Your Business Agreement Really Mean? What Joseph L. Rini Knows, Attorney Rachel Y. Marshall A Pillar of Strength for the Community, SpotDraft Raises $26 Million in Series A Funding for AI-Powered Legal Software, Access to the entire ALM network of websites, Unlimited access to the ALM suite of newsletters, Build custom alerts on any search topic of your choosing. The attack was attributed to Russian hackers and caused an estimated $10 billion in damages. The State Department has recently pressed U.S. allies to similarly restrict the use of high-risk Chinese-made network equipment in their national telecommunications networks. Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence).A person who commits espionage is called an espionage agent or spy. Store information in Secure Facilites Counterintelligence is defined in Executive Order 12333, as amended, is "information gathered and activities conducted to protect against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, or assassinations conducted by or on behalf of foreign governments or elements thereof, foreign organizations or foreign persons, or assassinations conducted by or on behalf of foreign governments or elements thereof, foreign organizations or forgiven persons, or international terrorist activities. In addition, whether located at home or abroad, many cyber actors are obfuscating their identities and obscuring their activity by using combinations of leased and compromised infrastructure in domestic and foreign jurisdictions. Over the last year, the FBI has met with top social media and technology companies several times, provided them with classified briefings, and shared specific threat indicators and account information, so they can better monitor their own platforms. Of course, China is neither the first nor the only foreign government to use its intelligence services to promote commercial interests. Only a tenth of Russian spy operations in Europe have been uncovered, according to the former MI6 boss Sir John Sawers, after it emerged that the two men accused of carrying out the Salisbury . The term APT is commonly used in reference to the cyber threat posed by foreign intelligence services, or hackers working on behalf of such entities, but is not limited just to this and can equally be applied to other threat actors such as organized crime syndicates and those involved in traditional espionage. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. Preventing terrorist attacks remains the FBIs top priority. State-owned enterprises are also engaged in espionage. Advocating violence for terrorist organization But if China proves willing to make systemic changes, the administration should be willing to relax the trade remedies the U.S. has imposed, rather than locking the U.S. into an economic cold war with Beijing. Getting The Talent Balance Right: From Layoffs to Laterals to Mergers, How Can Firms Staff for Success? The wide variance in sophistication of espionage tradecraft implies the idea of Islands of Excellence (see Figure 6) meaning China employs espionage tradecraft with varying degrees of sophistication and effectiveness. But this is not just an election-cycle threat. Foreign Intelligence Threats - Traditional Activity Traditional activity Forgoing intelligence entities operating out of: Embassies Consulates Universities Trade missions Insider Spies (Insider Threat) Foreign Intelligence Threats Non-Traditional Activity Foreign government-sponsored commercial enterprises International trafficking organizations The Defense Departments Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), for example, last year launched a $1.5 billion, five-year initiative to support advances in chip technology. Traditional espionage encompasses a government's efforts to acquire clandestinely classified or otherwise protected information from a foreign government. This wide variance in professional tradecraft likely indicates MSS suffers from lack of standardized training, security awareness, operational oversight, and case management. In addition to these Executive Branch actions, companies and Congress have played an important role in Americas response. While India would like the current phase of stability at the LoC to continue, it has little incentive to try to make a grand gesture toward peace with Pakistan. Expressing an obligation to engage in violence I also want to offer brief remarks on the second, partly overlapping type of unconventional Chinese espionage that merits a forceful U.S. response: espionage against U.S. colleges and universities. Fortunately, efforts here in Congress, including by Chairman Grassley and other members of this Committee, have drawn public attention to this issue, and Assistant Attorney General Demers and the Department of Justice have significantly expanded FARA enforcement. Impact on the U.S. Economy. Email Email. Asia, Central But universities risk being fertile place for this kind of espionage, given the open, international, and collaborative nature of most university research and universities legitimate interest in encouraging international collaboration. Evoke or draw out (a response, answer, or fact) from someone in reaction to ones own actions or questions. Provide non-descript answers The Trump administration has accused Fijian Jinhua of benefiting from trade secrets that were stolen from Micron Technologies, a large U.S. semiconductor firm, and the Commerce action was a welcome, important development that signals to Chinese companies that stolen IP isnt free. For example, U.S. prosecutors have accused Chinese hackers of stealing cost and pricing information from a U.S. solar company, which was probably intended to help Chinese competitors develop their own pricing strategy. Traditional espionage (18 USC 792-799): The practice of spying or using spies to obtain information about the plans and activities of a foreign government. Weeks earlier, on October 10, the FBI announced the arrest of Mr.Yanjun Xu, alleged deputy division director of the Jiangsu Province Office (sixth bureau) of the Ministry of State Security, Chinas main civilian spy agency. These criminals have also increased the sophistication of their schemes, which are more difficult to detect and more resilient to disruption than ever. More than 60 percent of Chinas attempts to illegally export U.S. critical technologies are targeted at military technologies or space systems. In late October, the U.S. Commerce Department put a Chinese semiconductor firm, Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Company, on its entity list, which prohibits U.S. companies from selling Fujian Jinhua technology and products. Get briefed on the story of the week, and developing stories to watch across the Asia-Pacific. When it comes to economic espionage, it is important to keep in mind that espionage is but one element in a broader Chinese strategy to modernize its economy and to promote China as the world leader in a range of technologies that will be critical to both economic and military power in the years ahead. Report, Trans-Pacific It can involve the analysis of diplomatic reports, publications, statistics, and broadcasts, as well as spying, a clandestine activity carried out by an individual or individuals working under secret identity to gather classified information on behalf of another entity or nation.