China Reform Monitor
No. 450, May 28, 2002
American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, D.C.
CIA, DOD warn of China cyber attack on U.S.; Clinton paid $250,00 for half-hour speech in China
Editor: Al Santoli May 21
The CIA has issued an alert that China is preparing a new round of exploratory cyber attacks on American defense and civilian computer networks in the U.S. and Taiwan, reports the Asia Times. The Institute for Strategic Studies, run by the U.S. Army War College, has also released a classified report on the subject as an early warning to the Defense Department, warning U.S. diplomats and law-enforcement agencies to be vigilant for attempts by Chinese student hackers to spread computer viruses to sensitive government Internet sites some time in early summer.
Three years ago, Chinese anger spilled into cyberspace to protest the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Chinese hackers broke into the U.S. Department of Energy's website and replaced its homepage with a note written half in English, half in Chinese, which read: "We are Chinese hackers who take no cares about politics... You have owed Chinese people a bloody debt which you must pay for. We won't stop attacking until the war stops."
Only a year ago, a successful Chinese cyber knocked out the White House's website for almost four hours. In addition, Chinese hackers defaced more than 660 sites in the U.S., according to Michael Cheek of the security firm iDefense.
U.S. cyber technologies - including surveillance, encryption, firewalls, and even viruses - have been willingly transferred to Chinese entities over the past several years. U.S. companies like Network Associates (McAfee Anti Virus) and Symantec (Norton Anti Virus), for example, gained entry to China's market by voluntarily providing China's Public Security Bureau with more than 300 computer viral strains.
"The Chinese military views cyberwarfare as a way to overcome America's superiority," claims Toshi Yoshihara, a research fellow on security issues with the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and a doctoral candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Two years ago, John Serabian, the CIA's information operations manger, revealed in written testimony presented to the Joint Economic Committee that the U.S. was indeed vulnerable to a major cyber attack from China's military - an assault which would be truly damaging interruptions to the national economy and infrastructure