The issue began making headlines on Jan. 12 when Google posted on its official blog that it detected a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" originating from China that stole intellectual property. Further investigation found that the attack also targeted at least 20 other large companies as well as Google e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.
The announcement stirred an international response, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on China to investigate the attacks. However, the U.S. has been aware of China's cyberwarfare activities for several years.
Hans Remberg, vice president of the Federal Republic of Germany's domestic intelligence agency, accused China of sponsoring computer attacks “almost daily."
According to a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) report to Congress, Remberg says that, “Across the world the PRC (People’s Republic of China) is intensively gathering political, military, corporate-strategic, and scientific information in order to bridge their [sic] technological gaps as quickly as possible.”
The DoD report adds that the attacks from China have a higher level of sophistication and organization than hackers from other countries, and “the conflict has reached the level of a campaign-style, force-on-force engagement.”
“They will exploit anything and everything,” a senior official told FCW in its report. “It’s hard to believe it’s not government-driven.”
The attacks have a broad range of objectives, including the stealing of technology, gathering intelligence, and stealing information from the DoD.
A key threat the Chinese cyber attacks pose, in addition to stealing high-level information on U.S. military information and operations, is that they are also planting dormant technology that could be activated at a later time.
“A recent Chinese military white paper states that China plans to be able to win an ‘informationized war’ by the middle of this century,” says the FCW report.
A Broader Strategy
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has repeatedly denied accusations of cyber attacks against the U.S., other countries, and businesses, often calling the accusations racist or against China. Following the recent attacks on Google, a statement was published by a spokesman from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology saying the accusations are “groundless and aim to denigrate China.”
