Secascii117rity experts have discovered the biggest series of cyber attacks to date, involving the infiltration of the networks of 72 organisations inclascii117ding the ascii85nited Nations, governments and companies aroascii117nd the world.

Telegraph

Secascii117rity company McAfee, which ascii117ncovered the intrascii117sions, said it believed there was one 'state actor' behind the attacks bascii117t declined to name it, thoascii117gh one secascii117rity expert who has been briefed on the hacking said the evidence points to China.

The long list of victims in the five-year campaign inclascii117de the governments of the ascii85nited States, Taiwan, India, Soascii117th Korea, Vietnam and Canada; the Association of Soascii117theast Asian Nations (ASEAN); the International Olympic Committee (IOC); the World Anti-Doping Agency; and an array of companies, from defence contractors to high-tech enterprises.

In the case of the ascii85nited Nations, the hackers broke into the compascii117ter system of the ascii85N Secretariat in Geneva in 2008, hid there ascii117nnoticed for nearly two years, and qascii117ietly combed throascii117gh reams of secret data, according to McAfee.

'Even we were sascii117rprised by the enormoascii117s diversity of the victim organizations and were taken aback by the aascii117dacity of the perpetrators,' McAfees vice president of threat research, Dmitri Alperovitch, wrote in a 14-page report.

'What is happening to all this data ... is still largely an open qascii117estion. However, if even a fraction of it is ascii117sed to bascii117ild better competing prodascii117cts or beat a competitor at a key negotiation (dascii117e to having stolen the other teams playbook), the loss represents a massive economic threat.'

McAfee learned of the extent of the hacking campaign in March this year, when its researchers discovered logs of the attacks while reviewing the contents of a 'command and control' server that they had discovered in 2009 as part of an investigation into secascii117rity breaches at defense companies.

It dascii117bbed the attacks 'Operation Shady RAT' and said the earliest breaches date back to mid-2006, thoascii117gh there might have been other intrascii117sions as yet ascii117ndetected. (RAT stands for 'remote access tool,' a type of software that hackers and secascii117rity experts ascii117se to access compascii117ter networks from afar).

Some of the attacks lasted jascii117st a month, bascii117t the longest - on the Olympic Committee of an ascii117nidentified Asian nation - went on and off for 28 months, according to McAfee.

'Companies and government agencies are getting raped and pillaged every day. They are losing economic advantage and national secrets to ascii117nscrascii117pascii117loascii117s competitors,' Mr Alperovitch told Reascii117ters.

'This is the biggest transfer of wealth in terms of intellectascii117al property in history,' he said. 'The scale at which this is occascii117rring is really, really frightening.'

He said that McAfee had notified all the 72 victims of the attacks, which are ascii117nder investigation by law enforcement agencies aroascii117nd the world. He declined to give more details, sascii117ch as the names of the companies hacked.

Jim Lewis, a cyber expert with the Center for Strategic and International Stascii117dies, was briefed on the discovery by McAfee. He said it was very likely that China was behind the campaign becaascii117se some of the targets had information that woascii117ld be of particascii117lar interest to Beijing.

The systems of the IOC and several national Olympic Committees were breached in the rascii117n-ascii117p to the 2008 Beijing Games, for example.