China to Conduct More Cyber Attacks Against US - Pompeo

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States should be ready for China conducting more cyber-attacks in the future, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a speech at the Centre for Policy Studies in London.

"The APT10 Group [Advanced Persistent Threat 10 hacking group] acted on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of State Security to steal intellectual property and sensitive commercial data from Europe, and from Asia, and from the United States. We appreciate the United Kingdom publicly calling out China for that cyber-attack, there will be more, and we must be ever vigilant", Pompeo said.

The statement comes after US-based cybersecurity firm FireEye claimed in March that the APT40 hacking group conducted a cyber espionage operation targeting crucial technologies to bolster China's navy.

Pompeo accused China of stealing intellectual property related to artificial Intelligence, space technologies, and ballistic areas, among others, for military purposes.

READ MORE: Cyber Assaults May Constitute ‘Armed Attack' Under US-Japanese Treaty — Pompeo

In December, the US Department of Justice indicted two Chinese citizens for hacking and compromising clients in the United States and 11 other countries, including Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.

US authorities did not disclose specific companies the hackers targeted, but said the hackers compromised computers connected with the US Navy, the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and NASA.