Crossroads Blog | CYBER SECURITY LAW AND POLICY

cyber attack, Cyber Exploitation, warfare

Chinese military mobilises cybermilitias: Financial Times

On October 12th, 2011, Kathrin Hille reported for the Financial Times on how China's People's Liberation Army has created talented cybermilita units in China's telecommunications, electronics, and internet industries.  Set up over the past decade, these cybermilitias form the backbone of the Chinese internet warfare forces.  Although Beijing insists the state does not sponsor hacking and its cyberwarfare strategy is purely defensive, senior PLA officers have argued that China should use electronic techniques to attack adversaries since as early as 1999.  Since 2002, the PLA has been searching for external talent to put that strategy into practice.  A 2009 Northrop Gruman report noted that “The PLA is reaching out across a wide swath of the Chinese civilian sector to meet the intensive personnel requirements necessary to support its burgeoning information warfare capabilities.”

Governments, internet security experts, and companies around the world have blamed China for cyberattacks.  US investigators believe that a cyberattack on Google originated from a vocational school in the Chinese province of Shandong.  US officials also point to the Chinese government or its supporters for the theft of intellectual property, the defense secretary's e-mails, and neutron bomb designs.  Mike Rogers, chairman of the House permanent select committee on intelligence, commented that attacks on companies have “a level of sophistication and are clearly supported by a level of resources that can only be a nation state entity."

The source article can be found here.

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