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I hear in the news stories about companies being highjacked by hackers, where the hackers encrypt said companies' data and demand a ransom. If that is possible

I hear in the news stories about companies being highjacked by hackers, where the hackers encrypt said companies' data and demand a ransom. If that is possible, then wouldn't it be possible for US backed hackers to do the same to the Chinese backed organizations that stole American IP? It seems ineffective to just publicly indict Chinese hackers that are in China. The indictments are public, so the likelihood that said hackers come to the US are nill. Seems more effective to erase the trade secrets, or any other data, from these organizations.

phyller 8y ago
That would raise a variety of other serious issues. Besides the ethical problem that just because someone else does something bad, doesn't make it ok for you to do that bad thing. I could list several important reasons why "hacking back" would be a bad idea, but I'll just stick to the pragmatic "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones". We have a much larger surface area and much more to lose if we get into that kind of tit-for-tat. Instead, the US is building a case that China is an aggressor, and is responding in other ways that will apply more pressure. For example, tariffs on Chinese exports.