The U.S. government must take a stand in light of "very serious" new evidence of cyberattacks on American corporations by a Chinese military unit, the editor-in-chief of a financial news website told CNBC on Wednesday.
"It's basically an act of war," Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget said in a "Squawk Box" interview. "Especially if it is tied to the [Chinese] army and government. It's an act of war."
A study released Tuesday by Mandiant, a U.S. computer security company, identified the People's Liberation Army's Shanghai-based Unit 61398 as the most likely driving force behind the hacking — accusations denied by China.
(Read More: China to US on Hacking: You've Got No Proof)
"Countries and corporations, the assets are now in databases," Blodget pointed out. "They used to be in the ground, on land, and so forth. So this is the new way to wage war."
Mandiant said it believes the Chinese unit has stolen "hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organizations across a diverse set of industries, beginning as early as 2006."
On Wednesday, the White House is expected to unveil a to protect American companies from losing hundreds of billions of dollars in such attacks from China.
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Blodget said a strong stand by the U.S. government must be taken. "We can't have this happen to our companies." He suggested trade sanctions as a possible solution but warned that "you can't bring military into it."