Chinese hackers pose biggest espionage threat to tech firms, CrowdStrike says

A Crowdstrike office is shown in Sunnyvale, Calif., on Friday, July 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Haven Daley)

June 9 - China-linked hackers posed the biggest espionage threat to technology companies over the past year, CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm, said in a report published on Tuesday, amid surging investment in artificial intelligence.

The hacking campaigns align with the Chinese government’s strategic priorities and a sustained interest in technology development, intellectual property, and information with strategic and economic value, the firm said.

The technology sector was once again the most targeted industry by both foreign governments and cybercriminals, the report found. It focused on threats to companies that research, develop or distribute computer hardware and technology, IT services and consulting, semiconductors, and software overall. CrowdStrike did not identify specific targeted companies.

The Chinese embassy in Washington dismissed the report.

The findings, which span April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026, come amid frenzied valuations and investments in technology firms in and around the artificial intelligence space, which are among the high-value targets, said Adam Meyers, CrowdStrike’s senior vice president, head of counter adversary operations.

On April 23, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy accused China-based entities of “deliberate, industrial-scale campaigns” to surreptitiously distil U.S.-developed models for their own purposes, highlighting one recent example.

“There is an AI arms race occurring between the U.S. and China, and China intends to achieve global dominance by 2030,” Meyers said, noting the threat to major frontier labs along with smaller, domain-specific model developers.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said “China opposes hacking activities and fights such activities in accordance with the law,” and that it rejects “vilification and smears under the pretext of cybersecurity.” The spokesperson added that China and the U.S. need to work together on AI development and governance, and that during Trump’s recent visit “the two heads of state had constructive exchanges on AI and agreed to launch government-to-government dialog on AI.”

North Korean hacking campaigns “posed a major threat,” the report said, particularly through a scheme in which North Korean operatives use fake identities to secure remote IT jobs at technology companies. The workers’ salaries are largely funneled back to the Pyongyang government, and their positions inside the companies provide footholds for intelligence collection.

Russian and Iran-linked hacking groups also heavily target the U.S. and other nations’ technology sectors for intelligence collection and, at times, destructive malware attacks.

The report also highlighted an increase in hacking activity from financially motivated cybercriminal groups targeting technology firms over the same time period, including a 30 per cent increase in advertisements from hackers selling access to various targets.

(Reporting by AJ Vicens in Detroit; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)