Reviewing all the various reports and allegations, from the United States, to Europe, and
China, it appears that all nation states, and their commercial affiliates, engage in a variety
of activities that be could called espionage, or intelligence gathering. In some cases these
activities are illegal, or skirt the laws of both the target and the initiating states. The size of
these cyberespionage activities reflects both the economic strength of the nations involved
(advanced countries like the United States and European countries arguably have the largest and most sophisticated programs), and the demand in developing countries for stolen
intellectual property.
It is also difficult to estimate the economic cost of these thefts to the U.S. economy. In a
2011 report to Congress from the Office of National Counterintelligence, intelligence experts
concluded that the economic cost was in the billions of dollars, and millions of jobs.
The potential impact of cyberespionage is illustrated in the following examples.