It was not news to Mandia‘s commercial competitors, or the federal government, that systematic attacks could be traced to a nondescript office building outside Shanghai that he believes was run by the Chinese army. What was remarkable was that the extraordinary details – code names of hackers, one‘s affection for Harry Potter and how they stole sensitive trade secrets and passwords – came from a private security company without the official backing of the US military or intelligence agencies responsible for protecting the nation from a cyber-attack.