This assignment will require you to provide a brief intelligence assessment of likely future targeting requirements associated with cyber espionage threat campaigns targeting foreign nation-states in support of the economic interests of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Requirements:
Please read “The 13th Five-Year Plan” report attached below which details the Chinese President and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping’s vision for China’s economic development over the next five years. This document continues to be used by cyber intelligence professionals to understand what industries may be of interest to the Chinese government in order to assess how likely they are to be targeted by cyber espionage actors for theft of sensitive trade secrets that would bolster China’s economic development.
In a 2-3 page report, please write an intelligence assessment on the threat posed to US private industries by Chinese cyber espionage actors based upon the information listed in the latest Five-Year Plan report. Your assessment should, at a minimum, including the following information:
- What industries is China looking to bolster economic growth in over the next five years?
- What US-based industries could potentially be targeted by Chinese cyber espionage operations?
- What US-based companies (list a handful) could potentially be targeted as a result of operating within a given industry? (hint: to limit the scope of your research, please focus only on the latest Fortune Top 500 – http://fortune.com/fortune500/)
- Provide at least one (1) practical example of a known Chinese cyber espionage threat group that has previously targeted or is likely to target the industries and companies you’ve listed
- Ex: APT1 targets defense contractors – https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2013/02/mandiant-exposes-apt1-chinas-cyber-espionage-units.html
You must perform open source research on current events related to the topic of Chinese cyber espionage activity in order to provide evidence in support of your position. Please provide a list of all external sources (URLs are sufficient) on the last page of your report.
Optional: you may want to read the attached FireEye report on the topic of Chinese cyber espionage operations to better inform your intelligence assessment
Your submission should be in PDF format and written in 12 point font, single-spaced with 1 inch margins.
