LONDON: A team of hackers who have been working for China’s Ministry of State Security broke into the networks of eight of the world’s largest technology service providers, according to Reuters.

The hacking, as the report said, was made in an effort to steal secrets, mainly commercial, from their clients.

The report said that eight technology service providers were hacked by Chinese cyberspies in the years-long attack. The attack exploited the weaknesses in these companies, and their customers, as well as the Western system of technological defense.

The suspected Chinese cyberspies hacked five times from 2014 to 2017, including the Swedish telecoms equipment giant Ericsson, Tata Consultancy Services, NTT Data, Fujitsu, Dimension Data, Computer Sciences Corporation and DXC Technology, HPE’s spun-off services arm, the report said.

The Chinese government has, however, been consistently denying the accusations of involvement in hacking. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the Chinese government has not and never participated in or supported a person to carry out such theft of commercial secrets. (Reuters)