I saw this news a few days ago but was pondering if there will
come a day where cyber incursion into the wrong sensitive site be
translated to a 1st strike and required a military response.
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- The Chinese government called
allegations that its military hacked the Pentagon's computer
network over the summer "groundless", the state-run Xinhua news
agency reported late Tuesday. "The Chinese government has always
opposed any Internet-wrecking crime, including hacking, and cracked
down on it according to the law," Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters. Officially, the United States
has not accused Beijing of cracking into the military e-mail system
that serves Defense Secretary Robert Gates and hundreds of other
department employees. But, behind the scenes, a senior Bush
administration official told CNN that China is the No. 1 suspect in
the June hacking incident. On Monday, the Financial Times of London
also reported that Washington believed China was responsible. "Some
people are making wild accusations against China and wantonly
saying the Chinese military attacked the Pentagon's computer
network," Jiang said. "These are totally groundless and also
reflect a Cold War mentality." She called hacking an international
problem and said that China has also been attacked. "China would
like to work with other countries to take measures to crack down on
Web crime," according to Jiang. In Australia ahead of the APEC
summit, reporters asked President Bush on Wednesday if he would
bring up the issue of hackers with Chinese President Hu Jintao when
the two leaders meet Thursday. "I'm very aware that a lot of our
systems are vulnerable to cyber attack from a variety of places,"
Bush said at a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister
John Howard.
"In terms of whether or not I'll bring this up to countries that we
suspect may -- from which there may have been an attack, I may."
The cyber attack led the Pentagon to shut down its unclassified
e-mail for nearly three weeks. U.S. government sources said the
unclassified e-mail system is not connected to other e-mail
networks that contain sensitive military secrets. Pentagon
officials said none of their operations were disrupted. At the time
of the attack, Gates never mentioned China. "The reality is that
the Defense Department is constantly under attack," he said.
"Elements of the OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense]
unclassified e-mail system were taken off-line ... due to a
detected penetration."
The Pentagon does suspect the Chinese People's Liberation Army
(PLA) of operating secret cells of computer hackers, although not
officially pointing a finger at Beijing in this instance. In its
annual report on the Chinese military earlier this year, the
Defense Department confirmed the likely existence of such units:
"The PLA has established information warfare units to develop
viruses to attack enemy computer systems and networks."
On Wednesday, The Guardian newspaper in London reported that
Chinese hackers launched online assaults against the network at
Britain's Parliament and the Foreign Office, according to the
Associated Press. AP further reports that on the eve of German
Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to Beijing last week, the weekly
Der Spiegel said computers at the Chancellery and three ministries
had been infected with so-called Trojans, or spy
programs
2nd article.
By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and Richard McGregor
in Beijing
Published: September 3 2007 19:00 | Last updated: September 3 2007
20:53
The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in
June in the most successful cyber attack on the US defence
department, say American ¬officials.
The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system
serving the office of Robert Gates, defence secretary, but declined
to say who it believed was behind the attack.
Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an
internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from
the Peoples Liberation Army.
One senior US official said the Pentagon had pinpointed the exact
origins of the attack. Another person familiar with the event said
there was a very high level of confidence...trending towards total
certainty that the PLA was responsible. The defence ministry in
Beijing declined to comment on Monday.
Angela Merkel, Germanys chancellor, raised reports of Chinese
infiltration of German government computers with Wen Jiabao,
Chinas premier, in a visit to Beijing, after which the Chinese
foreign ministry said the government opposed and forbade any
criminal acts undermining computer systems, including
hacking.
We have explicit laws and regulations in this regard, said Jiang
Yu, from the ministry. Hacking is a global issue and China is
frequently a victim.
George W. Bush, US president, is due to meet Hu Jintao, Chinas
president, on Thursday in Australia prior to the Apec summit.
The PLA regularly probes US military networks and the Pentagon is
widely assumed to scan Chinese networks but US officials said the
penetration in June raised concerns to a new level because of fears
that China had shown it could disrupt systems at critical
times.
The PLA has demonstrated the ability to conduct attacks that
disable our system...and the ability in a conflict situation to
re-enter and disrupt on a very large scale, said a former
official, who said the PLA had penetrated the networks of US
defence companies and think-tanks.
Hackers from numerous locations in China spent several months
probing the Pentagon system before overcoming its defences,
according to people familiar with the matter.
The Pentagon took down the network for more than a week while the
attacks continued, and is to conduct a comprehensive diagnosis.
These are multiple wake-up calls stirring us to levels of more
aggressive vigilance, said Richard Lawless, the Pentagons top
Asia official at the time of the attacks.
The Pentagon is still investigating how much data was downloaded,
but one person with knowledge of the attack said most of the
information was probably unclassified. He said the event had
forced officials to reconsider the kind of information they send
over unsecured e-mail systems.
John Hamre, a Clinton-era deputy defence secretary involved with
cyber security, said that while he had no knowledge of the June
attack, criminal groups sometimes masked cyber attacks to make it
appear they came from government computers in a particular
country.
The National Security Council said the White House had created a
team of experts to consider whether the administration needed to
restrict the use of BlackBerries because of concerns about cyber
espionage
