Australia and key intelligence partners on Tuesday accused a China-backed group of conducting a wide-scale cyber espionage operation. The Australian Signals Directorate, Australia's cyber intelligence agency, issued an advisory saying the hacking group known as APT 40 had "repeatedly targeted Australian networks as well as government and private sector networks in the region". According to the advisory, APT 40 is linked to Beijing's Ministry of State Security (MSS) and "the threat they pose to our networks is ongoing". It is the first time Australia has directly and proactively attributed malicious cyber activity to a Chinese state-sponsored actor, and signals a…