The FBI and MI5 issue a rare joint statement warning tech companies of China's large-scale state-sponsored hacking and a global network of agents to steal IP
Hello, sorry I'm late. Christopher Wray / F.B.I. : Director's Remarks to Business Leaders in London Gordon Corera / BBC : China: MI5 and FBI heads warn of ‘immense’ threat MI5 : Joint address by MI5 and FBI Heads Beyond the West : Arabs and Israelis to forge defence alliance; U.S. suspicion of TikTok resurfaces Chris Nuttall / Financial Times : China hacked off at spying claims Alex Scroxton / ComputerWeekly.com : MI5, FBI chiefs warn of Chinese cyber espionage threat Brian Pereira / inforisktoday.com : FBI and MI5 Chiefs Issue Warning on China IP Theft Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Mac : Apple's disaster scenario is a real possibility, say US and UK security services: Chinese takeover of Taiwan Usama Jawad / Neowin : FBI and MI5 call out China for sponsoring cyber threats Phil Muncaster / Infosecurity : FBI and MI5 Bosses Warn of “Massive” China Threat Jon Porter / The Verge : FBI and MI5: ‘The Chinese government is set on stealing your technology’ Fortune : FBI and MI5 warn that China's spies are snooping ‘everywhere’ with the goal of ‘ransacking’ companies' intellectual property The Guardian : FBI and MI5 leaders give unprecedented joint warning on Chinese spying BeauHD / Slashdot : MI5 and FBI Heads Issue Joint Warning On Chinese Spying Luke Barr / ABC News : FBI director calls China ‘biggest’ US threat; authorities warn of North Korean cyber attacks Flora Thompson / The Independent : MI5 and FBI join forces to warn against threat posed by China Ken Dilanian / NBC News : Heads of FBI and MI5 issue strong warning about threat to the West from China Ashley Gold / Axios : FBI, MI5 issue joint warning about Chinese espionage Tweets: David Hundeyin / @davidhundeyin : Also for the love of god, STOP USING TIKTOK. It is a Chinese state-controlled global propaganda, surveillance and data harvesting tool that gives Beijing the same power that Meta gives DC. The difference is DC has elections and human rights and FOIA - Beijing doesn't! Elbridge Colby / @elbridgecolby : What's striking to me is how FBI Director Wray talks about the Chinese threat to attack Taiwan as a given. Like it's not even something that really needs to be explained any more. That should worry us all. 1/ https://www.fbi.gov/... Shashank Joshi / @shashj : That MI5 DG was allowed to say this underscores sea-change in UK policy: “The most game-changing challenge we face comes from the Chinese Communist Party. It's covertly applying pressure across the globe. This might feel abstract. But it's real and it's pressing...We need to act”. Will Glasgow / @wmdglasgow : Former Australian politician Sam Dastyari gets a shout out in this speech by MI5 Director General Ken McCallum. And this protective security advice (circa 1990) seems to have aged well. Some would argue it should be in today's #auspol induction handbook https://www.mi5.gov.uk/... https://twitter.com/... Shashank Joshi / @shashj : Heads of MI5 and FBI gave their first ever joint speech at Thames House in London this afternoon to audience of business & academic leaders, on danger of Chinese espionage. MI5's Ken McCallum warned of “coordinated campaign on a grand scale” & “strategic contest across decades”. Shashank Joshi / @shashj : MI5 DG: Chinese espionage uses “subtle, patient approach” & many agents of CCP are unwitting Westerners. Says MI5 has doubled “previously-constrained” effort v China in last three years, and plans to double again. Seven times as many China-related investigations today as in 2018. Colin Hayhurst / @colinhayhurst : “There is plenty you can do to protect yourself. Proportionately. Without making your organisation, your start-up or your university a fortress” Reminded of my warnings about interested “visitors” to UK university quantum computing labs. Ignored 🤷♂️ https://www.mi5.gov.uk/... @ukinusa : For the first time, Heads of the FBI and MI5 shared a public platform today. 🇬🇧🇺🇸 MI5 Director General Ken McCallum and @FBI Director Chris Wray came together to send a clear signal on a massive shared challenge: China. See more: https://www.mi5.gov.uk/... https://twitter.com/... Michael Shoebridge / @michael_aspi : 'The most game-changing challenge we face comes from the Chinese Communist Party. It's covertly applying pressure across the globe. This might feel abstract. But it's real & pressing. We need to talk about it. We need to act.' Sobering unity from US, UK. https://www.mi5.gov.uk/... Bill Birtles / @billbirtles : Buried because of Boris' woes but really significant they've taken this step of issuing a joint warning. Pertinent timing too for Australia with all the ‘reset’ talk about China: https://www.bbc.com/... Frank Luntz / @frankluntz : “FBI director Christopher Wray said China was the ‘biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security’ and had interfered in politics, including recent elections.” https://www.bbc.com/... Warren Davidson / @warrendavidson : No business is surprised by this warning - everyone has known and experienced this for years now. However, it's real progress for America's government to join with Great Britain's to acknowledge it. It will be epic if they actually do something about it. https://www.wsj.com/... James Paterson / @senpaterson : I welcome the public disclosure by MI5 of what has been long understood in the intelligence community: the sophisticated, comprehensive and systemic foreign interference, espionage and cyber security threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party: https://www.mi5.gov.uk/... Julian Ku / @julianku : “Mr. Wray said the FBI is opening a new counterintelligence investigation into China roughly every 12 hours. Mr. McCallum said MI5 was running seven times as many investigations into suspicious Chinese activity now as it was in 2018.” https://twitter.com/... Tanvi Madan / @tanvi_madan : “'Chinese govt is set on stealing your technology—whatever it is that makes your industry tick—& using it to undercut your business & dominate your mkt,' Mr. Wray told..business people. 'They're set on using every tool at their disposal'” https://www.wsj.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The warning broadens a June advisory on exploitation of public vulnerabilities to monitor network traffic: the FBI and MI5 now frame the threat to technology businesses as both cyber intrusion and an agent network pursuing intellectual property.
Later coverage shows that bilateral concern became a Five Eyes warning on IP theft and AI-enabled hacking and then expanded to warnings about telecom targeting across dozens of countries. The arc matters because it moves the issue from isolated technical exposure toward coordinated, cross-border security policy.
First-order effects
- Technology companies are put on notice by the FBI and MI5 to treat intellectual-property theft as a state-sponsored security risk spanning network defenses and human access.
- The FBI and MI5 publicly align their threat messaging, giving corporate security leaders a shared US-UK basis for escalating China-linked intrusion and espionage risks.
Second-order effects
- UK, US, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand security agencies gain a precedent for coordinated warnings, reflected in the later Five Eyes intervention on IP theft and AI-assisted spying.
- Telecommunications operators and their suppliers face greater scrutiny as later agencies describe a China-linked campaign that reached US telecoms and many other countries.
Third-order effects
- If this pattern holds, protection of proprietary technology will be handled less as a company-level cyber issue and more as a collective-security concern coordinated among allied governments.
- The progression from known-vulnerability exploitation to warnings about AI-enabled hacking points toward security policy that treats technical access, sensitive data, and intellectual property as connected attack surfaces.
The trend: Allied security agencies are increasingly linking cyber defense, intellectual-property protection, and strategic technology competition in coordinated responses to China-linked activity.