Cyber security experts are warning about increased risk of China-originated cyber attacks in a view of announcement of a US arms sale to Taiwan and invitation of the Dalai Lama to the White House. US-China cyber confrontation is nothing new but Chinese hacking attacks and Obama’s new hardball policy shift with China will likely add fuel to the fire.
At the 10th National People’s Congress in 2003, the Chinese army announced the creation of “information warfare units.” General Dai Qingmin said internet attacks would run in advance of any military operation to cripple enemies. Clearly cyber intelligence is a critical component of China’s military arsenal. Cyber espionage officially arrived on Capitol Hill when two Republican congressmen, Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia and Rep. Christopher Smith of New Jersey, went public with the news that in 2006 and 2007 their office computer networks had been breached by Chinese hackers. And also when Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who was in China on a trip with a U.S. trade delegation last December, had his laptop slurped by Chinese cyber operatives. Not much happened after those two events. It was seen as just two of the many covert acts that take place in networks that connect the billions of computers and related devices globally. Perhaps the recent discovery of a vast Chinese cyber espionage network (code named GhostNet) that penetrated 103 countries, infected nearly 1,300 computers, and continued to infect at least a dozen new computers every week, will provide the wake-up call. In March of 2009, the security operations center (SOC) identified 128 acts of cyber aggression against their clients every minute that were tracked back to IP addresses in China. These acts should serve as a warning that clearly indicates just how far along China’s cyber intelligence collection capabilities are.
America tops the global chart of military spending, with China and Russia ranking second and third. China’s strategists believe the United States is dependent on information technology and that this dependency constitutes an exploitable weakness. There are reasons to believe that China and Russia’s militaries are collaborating and cyber warfare is one area that not only lends itself to remote collaboration, but there is soft and medium intelligence that this has and is occurring. Last year Col. Gary McAlum, chief of staff of the command’s Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations at U.S, Strategic Command, quoted approvingly from a new report Technolytics had produced saying, “China aims to achieve global electronic dominance by 2050.” This conclusion was drawn prior to the massive decline in the U.S. economy. As the U.S. funding for research and development has slowed substantially, China’s has increased.
“Current and potential U.S. adversaries seek to employ cyber warfare, as a means to confront U.S. military superiority in conventional conflict”, said William J. Lynn III, Deputy Defense Secretary. Additionally, Lynn said, the cyber-warfare threat is a major national security issue that has captured his attention.“If we don’t maintain our capabilities to defend our networks in the face of an attack,” he said, “the consequences for our military – and indeed, for our whole national security – could be dire.”
Lynn cited a 1998 cyber attack launched by two California teenagers and an overseas accomplice that targeted U.S. military computer networks. “The attacks were coordinated and aimed at crucial military [computer] systems,” Lynn said. “The threat was so serious that the president was briefed.”
Investigators, he said, traced the origins of the attack and the instigators were apprehended and tried on charges of computer assault.
Yet, that 1998 computer attack “was child’s play,” Lynn said, noting the frequency and sophistication of attacks have increased exponentially during the past decade.
“Cyber [warfare] is an especially asymmetric technology; the low cost of computing devices means that our adversaries don’t have to build an expensive weapons system like a fifth-generation fighter to pose a disproportional threat,” Lynn explained.
Consequently, he said, many militaries are building offensive cyber capabilities.
The Defense Department today operates 15,000 computer networks across 4,000 military installations in 88 countries, Lynn said, noting the department spends billions of dollars each year to administer, monitor and defend those networks.
Because of the seriousness of the cyber threat, he said, the Defense Department has over the past 10 years built layered and robust cyber defenses.
And, in June 2009, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates directed the establishment of U.S. Cyber Command, a military sub-command focused on cyber security, Lynn noted. Cyber Command is in the process of being stood up and is to be based at Fort Meade, Md.
“Cyber Command will bring together more than a half a dozen intelligence and military organizations in support of three overlapping categories of cyber operations,” he said.
The command, he said, will protect defense computer networks, coordinate all defense computer operations and provide full-spectrum support for all military and counterterrorism missions, and stand by to support civil authorities and industry partners on an as-needed basis.
Next few years will be most likely years of steeply increasing federal cyber defense budgets.
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Computer Science
