“British business executives dealing with China were given a formal warning more than a year ago by Britain’s security service, MI5, that Chinese intelligence agencies were engaged in a wide-ranging effort to hack into British companies’ computers and to blackmail British businesspeople over sexual relationships and other improprieties, according to people familiar with the MI5 document.

The warning, in a 14-page document titled ‘The Threat from Chinese Espionage,’ was prepared in 2008 by MI5’s Center for the Protection of National Infrastructure, and distributed in what security officials described as a ‘restricted’ form to hundreds of British banks and other financial institutions and businesses. The document followed public warnings from senior MI5 officials that China posed ‘one of the most significant espionage threats’ to Britain.”

(Source: Britain Warned Businesses of Threat of Chinese Spying – NYTimes.com.)