Israel responds to growing threat of Chinese smart device espionage

China, the world’s second-largest economy, has for years engaged in smart device espionage targeting Israel, the United States, and many other countries. Chinese-made smart devices around the world have reportedly transmitted user data back to China – information the Chinese government has used to steal intellectual property and expand its already significant global influence.

Because of its cutting-edge military and civilian technologies, Israel has long been a prime target of Chinese device-based espionage. In response to growing concerns over Beijing’s data-gathering capabilities, Israel has begun to push back.

Most recently, Israel halted a Defense Ministry tender for Chinese vehicles, citing security risks. As a result, Israeli military officers are no longer permitted to drive Chinese-made ATTO BYD 3 electric vehicles, which are now also banned from entering high-security IDF bases.

Dr. Harel Menashri, a founding member of the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet’s cyber division, believes that Israel’s current measures remain insufficient to effectively address the complex challenge of Chinese smart device espionage.

“I’ve never come across Chinese technology that doesn’t transmit. When you operate a Chinese-made device, it first searches the Internet for communication channels to transmit information to government servers in China. You’d be wrong to say to yourself, ‘What can they possibly do with the information collected by my robotic vacuum cleaner?’ Broadly speaking, this is how they understand the Israeli way of life. China has built vast databases of metadata with all sorts of information. They are AI leaders and have a tremendous ability to “melt down” this information and turn it into valuable intelligence,” Menashri warned. 

He views China’s vehicles as advanced intelligence-gathering systems that could seriously undermine Israeli and Western security systems. The senior security official also believes that Chinese-made security cameras are equally problematic from a security perspective. 

In 2018, the U.S. government banned their officials from using Chinese cameras from the companies Dahua and Hikvision due to similar security concerns. By contrast, these Chinese-made cameras are still widely used in Israel by both government organizations, the police and the Israel Defense Forces. 

"Investigators at the Commerce, Defense and Justice departments have opened probes on suspicion that Wi-Fi routers manufactured by Chinese giant TP-Link, accounting for a 65% share of the U.S. market (and an unknown share of the Israeli market), constitute nothing less than a 'conduit' for cyber breaches and espionage on behalf of the Chinese government," the Israeli security official assessed. 

“This is a very effective method,” he stated. “China is taking advantage of its ability to produce quality products cheaply, making them easy to disseminate across the globe, while making them easier to hack and use them to gather information.”

The American tech giant Microsoft has also been a target for Chinese tech espionage. The company recently revealed that it had been exposed to a sophisticated Chinese infiltration, which exposed the emails of senior American officials including the former U.S. ambassador to China and former Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. Since the Microsoft platform is used worldwide, such security breaches potentially affect most countries including Israel. 

While China has developed close commercial ties with Israel and other Western democracies, it has simultaneously established close relations with Russia and the Iranian ayatollah regime. 

In 2021, China and Iran signed a strategic 25-year cooperation agreement amounting to $400 billion. At the time, the former Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) head Amos Yadlin, expressed concerns about the intelligence cooperation between China and Iran. 

“One of the most worrying clauses in the agreement between Iran and China is the intelligence sharing,” Yadlin warned. 

Menashri explained the dangers of China’s global domination ambitions. 

“They go to countries with lots of these resources, like in Africa, but not only, and offer: in exchange for your natural resources, we’ll bring you into the modern world. We’ll build you, civil infrastructure for energy and water desalination and public buildings. We’ll build you roads and bridges. And communication too. We’ll also make lots of money available for you to borrow. Everyone knows these countries won’t be able to meet the repayments, and then the infrastructure built eventually becomes the property of the Chinese government. Sri Lanka’s government, for example, collapsed when state infrastructure was transferred to China,” he said.

Nir Ben-Moshe, a former senior Israel Defense Ministry official and current INSS guest researcher, has warned for several years that digitalized societies like the U.S. and Israel are vulnerable to Chinese cyber-attacks. However, he still opposes bans on buying Chinese tech devices. 

“That’s a very complex question with cyber technology, political and economic implications. The answer is unequivocally no. I think the right thing is not to prevent purchase, but rather inform the public on how to use the devices safely,” he argued.