China and Russia have promised not to hack each other

These past few years has seen the number of large-scale hacks increase by a significant amount, with a significant chunk of them originating from China or Russia, and a large portion of these being state-funded. With this in mind, it’s a bit unsettling that the two nations have entered into a cyber-security pact in which they promise not to launch attacks against each other, as well as a few other things. 

Russia and China have signed a cyber-security pact, promising to not launch attacks at each other over the internet. The two superpowers also promised in an agreement signed Friday to not “destabilize the internal political and socio-economic atmosphere,” or “interfere with the internal affairs of the state,” according to translations provided by The Wall Street Journal. The 12-page agreement, written in Russian, also says the two states will share information between law enforcement agencies in an effort to secure each other’s critical national infrastructures. The coalition is said to be in response to the revelations about US and Western nation hacking and surveillance operations. Such allegations include the US government snooping on companies operating within Russia and tapping into the networks of Chinese technology giants. Talking to the financial newspaper, cybersecurity consultant Oleg Demidov said the agreement will “set a precedent for two global cybersecurity powers.”