On February 6 the Ministry of Defence announced that the Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) had discovered malware from a Chinese state actor on one of its networks. research & development. The Chinese malware was installed on a research and development network. This discovery by the MIVD once again confirms that the threat posed by Chinese espionage is both real and targeted.
Warnings About Chinese Malware and Espionage
Since around 2010, the AIVD and MIVD have been working to raise awareness within society and politics about the risks of Chinese espionage — and continue to do so — including in their public annual reports. As early as 2010, the services warned that Dutch high-tech companies were prime targets for Chinese espionage. A year later, the AIVD’s annual report noted that the Netherlands “forms an attractive target for economic and techno-scientific espionage.” In the following years, the counter-espionage efforts of the AIVD and MIVD increasingly shifted towards Chinese digital espionage. In 2015, the AIVD identified China as “the greatest threat to national security.” In 2018, the MIVD specifically warned about Chinese cyber-espionage targeting the Dutch vital infrastructure, the telecom sector, universities, high-tech companies, and the defence industry. The AIVD warned again in 2019 that top sectors and advanced Dutch technologies were increasingly targeted by Chinese espionage — adding the ominous forecast that, through Chinese investments in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and 5G technology, China risked making the rest of the world dependent on Chinese technological standards.
Chinese Malware as a Global Threat
The Dutch intelligence services are far from alone in this assessment. Many Western allies — including Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia — have issued similar warnings about the same threat. US counterparts have perhaps been even more explicit in their statements. In January 2024, the FBI, NSA, and CISA issued a joint statement naming Chinese state-sponsored hackers as the actors behind a years-long campaign to infiltrate the IT systems of critical US infrastructure, including power plants, oil and gas pipelines, and water treatment facilities. The FBI Director called itThe threat of our generation.” This marked a shift in Chinese focus from espionage targeting knowledge and economic assets, towards creating the capability to inflict damage in future conflicts by digitally disabling critical infrastructure — a tactic already familiar from Russia.
Espionage as a Tool in China’s Rise to Superpower Status
China aims to become a superpower equal to its only global rival, capable of making geopolitical decisions without constraint — whether that means taking Taiwan or parts of the South China Sea. onbetwist The country is determined to acquire every economic, military, and technological instrument it needs to achieve this — by any means necessary. instrumenten In other words: through global investments, acquisitions, and partnerships, but where these are insufficient, through cyber-espionage.
Given the scale of Chinese espionage and the nature of its targets, it is hardly surprising that a Dutch defence research network has been added to the long list of victims. Western military-technological developments are of particular interest to China, as it seeks to anticipate them.
Knowledge and Security Intelligence
Resistance begins with awareness. Governments, the private sector, academia, and society at large must recognise that the Netherlands holds an enormous wealth of high-value knowledge — knowledge that China needs for its own development and will seek to acquire by any means. This knowledge must be safeguarded and protected — a challenge in a world where international cooperation is the norm and borders are often seen as obstacles to progress. In such an open context, it is the Herculean task of the AIVD and MIVD to keep hostile intelligence services at bay. This mission cannot succeed without close cooperation with security-conscious research institutions and businesses.
The Knowledge Centre for Security Intelligence (KSI) contributes to this effort through research and training, enhancing awareness, understanding, and resilience against international espionage.
For more information, contact us at info@ksi.institute