Now this is impressive: Days before the first coronavirus infections were detected outside China, Vietnamese state-backed actors were hacking into China's Ministry of Emergency Management and the government of Wuhan, @jc_stubbs and @razhael report: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-cyber-vietnam/vietnam-linked-hackers-targeted-chinese-government-over-coronavirus-response-researchers-idUSKCN2241C8

U.S. cybersecurity firm @FireEye said a hacking group known as APT32 was behind it. "These attacks speak to the virus being an intelligence priority - everyone is throwing everything they've got at it, and APT32 is what Vietnam has".

It's particularly interesting because Vietnam's fight against the coronavirus to date has been very successful. Under 300 cases reported, no deaths, and the highest number of tests to confirmed cases in the world, thanks in part to mass quarantine and aggressive contact tracing.

But Vietnam also took crucial early steps, including stopping flights to Wuhan/Hubei, despite WHO advice, closing its border with China, and introducing universal mask-wearing. They were also the first country outside China to be affected by SARS, in 2003.

There are surely other countries which deployed similar methods. But what did they learn? "It shows both a distrust about Chinese government announcements and a sense that when China sneezes, it is its neighbours that get the flu – in this case literally," says @adschina.