i have been speaking to brian cunningham, the executive director of cyber security policy and researchor the white house. i asked brian how sure we can be that these are cyber attacks are actually state—sponsored. hopefully we have classified intelligence in the united states with our nato allies that confirms this in ways we can never discuss publicly, but on a public basis, there is essentially tradecraft that these groups employ that is repeated, the privateers, as i call them, the hackers that work for themselves, sometimes for the governments, they are great, talented, but essentially lazy and do the same thing over and over. each hacker group has a profile or fingerprint that you can identify. again, i don't believe our government or the uk government would be so public and accusing these groups of chinese government complicity unless we had more sensitive intelligence to back it up, but it is not a very difficult thing to figure out, actually. difficult thing to figure out, actuall . , . difficult thing to figure out, actuall. , . ., ., ., , actually. the privateer analogy is ve

we can speak now to brian cunningham, an executive directorfor brian cunningham, an executive directornia, as well as a former cyber security strategist for the white house. thank you very much indeed for joining us. ijust struck thank you very much indeed for joining us. i just struck the first of all, given your background, you will know the answer, how do they know that this is in any way a state—sponsored action, albeit by a private organisation? hopefully we have classified intelligence, both in the united states and with our nato allies that confirms this, in ways that we can never discuss publicly, but on a more public basis, there are essentially tradecraft that these groups employ that is repeated. the privateers, as i call them, the hackers that work sometimes for themselves and sometimes for themselves and sometimes for the government �*s, they are great, talented, but lazy essentially and do the same things over and over again, so each hacker group has a profile or a fingerprint that you can identify. i don't believe our government or the uk government would be so public in