China President calls for punishing cyber hackers

Close on the heels of his US tour, China President Xi Jinping said Chinese government doesn't hack commercial secrets nor it supports Chinese companies engaged in such activity. In an interview with Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Xi Jinping further said that whether governments or companies, whoever involved in cyber theft should be punished according to the law. China and the US are equally concerned about the cybersecurity. Jinping seeks the cooperation from the US to check cyber espionage. The cyber crime will be a major point for discussion during the meeting between Obama and Jinping.

Susan Rice, US National Security Advisor, on Monday issued a warning to the world's second largest economy to stop state-backed cyber theft. Terming the hacking networks is a national security issue and very crucial factor in maintaining relations between both the nations.

Cyber theft of commercial secrets and hacking attacks against government networks are both illegal. Such acts are criminal offences and should be punished according to law and relevant international conventions," said Xi Jinping in the written interview.

The Obama government is considering the issue very seriously. Recently President Obama also said that the issue would be a top priority for the meeting with China President. Obama further said that his administration considers Chinese attempts to seal American trade secrets as an act of aggression and it'll spoil the bilateral trade and relations between the world's largest and second-largest economies.

It's learnt that the US administration is also actively considering a proposal to impose sanctions against Chinese companies, which have engaged in cyber attacks on the US firms. However, now the US administration is in wait and watch mode ahead of the China's President visit. Based on the outcome of the crucial meeting between Obama and Jinping, the US administration may decide on future course of action.

Recently, the US intelligence and law enforcement officials had come to a conclusion that China was most probably behind the major hack, as per the market sources, which tracked the highly sensitive information on millions of American government employees. However, the US administration didn't make it public. 

Considering the sensitive global political equations, US officials didn't announce as it leads to reveal the evidence and methods of intelligence gathering, opine a computer security analyst. The hack against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was traced out by US intelligence, but it can't reveal its methods and practices, said the security analysts. 

According to official sources, the US government is considering to evolve a framework on the lines ofthe nuclear non-proliferation pact to check cyber theft. After working out modalities on the proposed pact on curbing cyber theft, it's likely that the US will expand it to other countries also.