Looks like China is utilizing all means possible to ensure its dominance in the international sphere–at least when it comes to cyberespionage as further links between the nation-state and hacking events come to light. A U.S. intelligence researchers group has just revealed that the critical data and e-mail belonging to the president of the European Union Council, Herman Van Rompuy, were stolen by a Chinese hacker group named ‘Comment/ Byzantine Candor’. Hackers last summer raided the e-mail of EU Council chief Herman Van Rompuy and 10 other senior officials.

The researchers revealed that the group accessed the EU Council’s computer network at around 9am Brussels time on four occasions – 8 July, 11 July, 13 July and 18 July last year. Some other victims of the group attack include oilfield services leader Halliburton Co. (HAL) to Washington law firm Wiley Rein LLP; from a Canadian magistrate involved in a sensitive China extradition case to Kolkata-based tobacco and technology conglomerate ITC Ltd. All in all, there were around 20 victim organizations with secrets that could give China an edge as it strives to become the world’s largest economy.

“What the general public hears about — stolen credit card numbers, somebody hacked LinkedIn- that’s the tip of the iceberg, the unclassified stuff,” said Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director of the FBI in charge of the agency’s cyber division until leaving earlier this year. “I’ve been circling the iceberg in a submarine. This is the biggest vacuuming up of U.S. proprietary data that we’ve ever seen. It’s a machine.”

What is more worrying here is that a small community of U.S. investigators with classified clearances knows the methods used by Chinese hackers. Besides, the frenetic pace of Comment’s operations creates back-to-back attack sessions. According to Alex Lanstein, a senior security researcher at California-based FireEye Inc., they have tracked hundreds of victims in the last three years and estimates the group has hacked more than 1,000 organizations.

Prior to this, the Chinese hackers planted bugs that transmitted confidential Indian Naval data to IP addresses in China. The data was suspected to be related to INS Arihant, India’s first nuclear sub, which is being put through the paces at the command. Besides IP addresses, another reason that Indian officials are blaming China is the tension between the nations in the area that the Naval Command governs. Looking at the track record of China and as per a survey recent conducted by Massachusetts-based Bit9, China is the ‘most likely actor’ in the “nation states” attacks. Although the country is playing nice with the US in cyberwar drills, it has been behind numerous different malware distributions and even been accused of outright hacking in several instances.

If the world wants to blunt Chinese cyber terrorism, some serious steps have to be taken. Perhaps, U.S. or European Union could do something, as we heard President Obama making efforts to cope with cyber threats.