In recent months the information systems of Western countries have been the victims of virulent attacks emanating from the People’s Re-public of China. Whether organised by the People’s Liberation Army or not, there is no doubt that they come from high-level hackers with considerable technical and financial resources, backed up by detailed information on the infrastructure of their targets. These intrusions are complicated to achieve and cannot be improvised. It is much more difficult to launch an attack with the aim of gathering confidential or classified information than to destroy enemy servers, as was the case in Estonia.