companies which remotely manage servers storage and other computing tasks and then stole secrets from their clients this case is significant because the defendants are accused of targeting and compromising managed service providers or m.s.p. s m s p s or firms that are trusted to store process and protect commercial data including intellectual property and other confidential business information when hackers gain access to m s p s they can steal sense of the business information that gives competitors an unfair advantage the attacks were allegedly part of a chinese campaign known as cloud hopper with the defendants working on behalf of china s intelligence service the managed service providers networks were infiltrated multiple times in breaches that lasted for weeks and months the deputy attorney general described it as part of a trend of state sponsored hackers breaking into u.s.