Earlier this week, Mandiant, a large-scale information security company, concluded that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), commonly known as the Military Unit Cover Designator, is likely a Chinese government-sponsored agency that hacked into at least 141 American companies. The United States Government has tracked registered IP addresses (used by the intruders to translate systems into Chinese) back to Shanghai. This striking evidence exposes Chinese military efforts in both cyberstealing and economic espionage. Mandiant confirmed that there are hundreds of human operators working for the PLA, three of whom helped hack the US enterprises.

In response to the growing concern for the safety of American businesses, President Obama signed an executive order that put forth new diplomatic efforts, which should better protect US companies as well as discourage both online theft and hacking. Some of these efforts include establishing voluntary standards focusing on protection in computer systems specific to economic sectors, such as banking divisions.

Unlike Mandiant, which only targeted the sloppy efforts of the Chinese Military, the President’s order applied to the investigations of countries around the globe.  Jeffrey Carr, founder and CEO of a global cybersecurity firm, believes that this decision was appropriate because numerous countries besides China are engaged in cybertheft including Russia, Israel, and France.