A private U.S. cybersecurity company on Monday accused a unit of China's military of conducting far-reaching hacking operations to advance the country's satellite and aerospace programs.
Security company CrowdStrike said Shanghai-based unit 61486 of the People's Liberation Army 12th bureau has attacked networks of Western government agencies and defense contractors since 2007.
CrowdStrike said the hacking targeted the U.S. space, aerospace and communications sectors. The cyberspying targeted "popular productivity applications such as Adobe Reader and Microsoft Office to deploy custom malware through targeted email attacks," CrowdStrike said.