The farcical aspects of the attempted Russian cyber-attack reported by the UK and the Netherlands on Thursday must be satisfying to those who counter such efforts, and are superficially amusing to any observer. It is unlikely that Vladimir Putin has relished seeing the incompetence of the GRU, the military intelligence agency, exposed so thoroughly. His mood may not have improved on learning that it seems to have inadvertently identified more than 300 agents in its cyber division.

But there is very little to laugh about here. The target was the international chemical weapons watchdog, which was investigating the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia – which led to the death of a British citizen – and a chemical weapons attack in Syria. The Netherlands believes the suspects had also targeted the investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which found it was hit by a Russian military missile; 298 people died. The evidence of how far Russia will go in both the online and physical realm mounts, while its denials – it dismissed the latest allegations as “spy mania” – become less and less convincing. The sloppiness that characterised the Netherlands mission was perhaps born of arrogance and the sense that implausible denials are in themselves part of the pattern of destabilisation – sending the message that truth does not matter and that the GRU cannot be stopped.

The reports came as Bloomberg alleged that a Chinese military unit had inserted tiny microchips into computer servers used by companies including Apple and Amazon, giving unprecedented backdoor access to computers and data. Amazon, Apple and the hardware firm Super Micro Computer have all denied the report, as has China, which says that it is itself the victim of cyber-attacks.

It is hard to think of a greater contrast between direct, impatient and careless work on one hand and slow, methodical and subtle work on the other. Hardware hacks such as that alleged by Bloomberg are not only a less known threat but potentially graver in the level of access they afford. China’s control of the tech supply chain is an obvious advantage in any such efforts.

Cybersecurity experts have already reported the persistence of large-scale software-based intrusions – mostly aimed at economic targets or traditional intelligence-gathering – that originate in China. Washington has indicted members of the Chinese military for cyber-attacks on US companies, and officials have strongly hinted that they blame Beijing for some intrusions into government systems. Human rights activists, Tibetan exiles and other groups are regularly targeted by hackers.

But Mike Pence’s broadside against China was a nonsense, and nakedly political. Though it fitted the administration’s broader agenda of hitting China over trade and other matters, the US vice-president’s claim that Russian election meddling “pales in comparison” was simply a deflection. It is no coincidence that he spoke on the same day as the coordinated international announcements about Russian activities. While there is growing concern internationally about covert Chinese influence, and Mr Pence cited a supplement China bought in an Iowa newspaper, this is hardly equivalent to reaching out to one side in the middle of a presidential campaign, hacking and leaking the emails of the other party, and engaging in large-scale fraudulent use of social media.

Mr Trump’s unwillingness to challenge such activities, or Mr Putin in general, inevitably hobbles those trying to tackle Russian interference, even if parts of government work around him to some degree, as with the announcements this week and earlier coordinated expulsions of Russian diplomats. Unity strengthens responses. In the case of China, it is usually impeded – at both corporate and governmental level – by a reluctance to jeopardise economic opportunities. For hackers to succeed, they need not just skill and determination but the ability to identify vulnerabilities in their target. In these cases, those weaknesses are not just in machines or software but in the humans deciding how to respond to such attacks.