Fergie's Tech Blog

China Seen as Honing Cyber-Attack Skills

Peter Spiegel writes in The Los Angeles Times:

The recent allegations that China has been hacking into sensitive government computer systems in the United States and Europe follow years of heavy investment by the People's Liberation Army in cyber-attack capabilities, U.S. defense officials and Asian security analysts said.

Although much of China's spending on information warfare remains secret, the Chinese military and its propaganda organs have regularly expressed their desire to develop computer warfare expertise and have boasted of their growing sophistication in the field, these experts said.

"There are intensive discussions in China about developing and perfecting their information warfare abilities," said Andrew Yang, a China military expert at the Taiwan-based Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies. "They have improved their tactics and approaches."

The U.S. military has alleged for nearly a year that China has launched cyber attacks on Pentagon networks. The issue returned to the spotlight this week after allegations, first reported by the Financial Times, that the PLA in June broke into an unclassified computer system used by the office of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. The breach forced the Pentagon to disable the computer system for several days.

posted by Fergie @ 9/06/2007 09:27:00 PM