China accounted for fewer than 1 in 10 of the state-backed hacking attempts outlined in the report, but its success rate was 44 percent when it did attempt to break into networks, Microsoft said in its second annual Digital Defense Report. Russia has become notorious for its high-volume, state-backed hacking, and Microsoft's report provides rare insight on how it stacks up against the U.S.'s other adversaries. Overall, hacking of other governments has a 10-20 percent success rate, according to Cristin Goodwin, head of Microsoft's Digital Security Unit.
"It's something that's really important for us to try to stay ahead of—and keep driving that compromised number down—because the lower it gets, the better we're doing," Goodwin said.
