China's ecosystem for offensive cyberoperations

China carries out a significant amount of offensive cyber operations. Every year we hear warnings from the Norwegian intelligence and security services about espionage from China and Chinese cyberactors. NATO and the US describe the country as the greatest strategic threat in the decades ahead.

But how has China actually established structures and rigged their own society to become a major power in the cyber domain? And how does the regime in Beijing use all of society’s resources to support the authorities’ offensive cyber operations?

In this lecture, you will get a deep dive into how the ecosystem of civilian hackers, private IT companies, universities and intelligence services cooperate and play along with each other to support the Chinese authorities’ offensive cyber operations.

Simen Bakke

Bakke has an operational background from the Norwegian Armed Forces and the Norwegian Police, and has worked at a strategic level with preventive security and preparedness in the Norwegian Police and at the head office of the Norwegian Red Cross.

He holds a master’s degree in risk management and security leadership from the University of Stavanger and has worked in the Norwegian Police’s IT-unit for the past six years.

Bakkes main fields of interrest is the use of cyber operations by threat actors and foreign states to manipulate, spy, sabotage and influence our businesses and societies – and how we can protect ourselves against this harmful activity.