"China has a capable and very wide-ranging cyber programme targeting the full spectrum of governmental, military, and commercial targets.
It says Moscow "operates a sophisticated, mature and successful cyber programme, using an extensive global internet-based infrastructure".
Indeed, at an SDSR press briefing in 2010 a senior government official who I asked whether the UK even had an offensive cyber programme declined to confirm that it did, although another official subsequently contacted me to say that there was such an effort.
"So when John Key or anyone in the New Zealand government says there is no mass surveillance in New Zealand, and they wave cyber protection programmes around … they are distracting from the main question".
This needs resources, and last week we earmarked £10m from the Cyber Security Programme to establish a fund for information assurance.
The government said during the Spending Review last year that it would invest £650m in a national cyber security programme to enhance online security.
An extra £650m has now been allocated to create a national cyber security programme to fund work across government in partnership with business and other experts to strengthen our understanding, our resilience and our defences.
But as the Nato and MoD leaks highlight the porous nature of our online defences, taxpayers are entitled to ask what we are getting for the £650m the national cyber security programme costs.
It comes almost two years after the launch of a £650m national cyber security programme.
Unit 61398 has for some time been suspected by the US of being central to China's cyber espionage programme, the New York Times reports.
