China's Marriott hack attack exemplifies a subtle new threat

In 2014, China seems to have gone on a hacking spree, targeting sensitive U.S. data. The effort was thorough and aggressive, going after not only personal information held by the Federal Office of Personnel Management, but also healthcare data kept by Anthem and CareFirst as well as travel data, including passport numbers, stored by the Marriott hotel chain.

That coordinated effort yielded a treasure trove of data for Chinese intelligence and exposed a critical need for collaboration between private companies and the government to safeguard data from malicious foreign actors.