CyberWar 2.0: China Is On The Offensive

MANY MOONS ago I wrote an article about the first real (publicly at least) Cyberwar instance, that being the concerted electronic attacks on Estonia’s infrastructure. That was an interesting story in itself, but the key point is that it was a wake up call for the West, for NATO and for just about every country with an electronic infrastructure.

The message was clear - Cyberwar was a real threat, not just a clever term in some obscure science fiction novel or military think-tank paper.

Since then most governments have been rushing to shore up vulnerabilities and create cyber-defence agencies for both offensive and defensive options. China however seems to have been a busy little aggressor in this department.

However it turns out that Estonia was not really the first real Cyberwar because China has been on the offensive for over 18 months now.

While world publicity has mainly focused on the intrusion of the Chinese into the email system of US Defense Secretary Robert Gates last year, the fact is that Chinese hackers have been crawling all over the computer systems of a growing number of countries. The latest example is their recent foray into the web servers of India’s Ministry of External Affairs as covered here by the Hindustan Times article.

According to an article over at “The Times Of India” newspaper China has been waging a Cyberwar against India for over 18 months now - that’s right a year and a half of dedicated and systematic attacks on the Indian electronic infrastructure.

To quote from an article in the “Times of India” online newspaper:

The sustained assault almost coincides with the history of the present political disquiet between the two countries. According to senior government officials, these attacks are not isolated incidents of something so generic or basic as “hacking” — they are far more sophisticated and complete — and there is a method behind the madness.

Publicly, senior government officials, when questioned, take refuge under the argument that “hacking” is a routine activity and happens from many areas around the world. But privately, they acknowledge that the cyber warfare threat from China is more real than from other countries.

The core of the assault is that the Chinese are constantly scanning and mapping India’s official networks. This gives them a very good idea of not only the content but also of how to disable the networks or distract them during a conflict.
This, officials say, is China’s way of gaining “an asymmetrical advantage” over a potential adversary.
  

I guess the real question here is… where next? I’ve been to China and I’ve seen the massive resources they have to throw at anything. This labour force, combined with a tenacious nature and a paranoid distrust of all things outside their direct sphere of control can only lead to even more Cyber attacks as China seeks to expand its interests and explore its limits.

Hell, even CNN are beginning to think they were targeted by China over their coverage of the Tibet protests and the Olympic torch run. An attempted hack against the CNN main news website provoked a counter-response from the CNN web team which slowed down the whole site until the threat could be dealt with. The attempt came as tech-oriented Web sites in Asia were reporting calls from hacker groups in China for denial-of-service attacks to be launched against the CNN Web site on Saturday over the network’s coverage of unrest in Tibet

Hmm, let’s examine the logic … 2+2 = Chinese hackers trying to smack down CNN for their coverage; Yup that makes sense to me ;)

Well, it looks like the next great Cyberwar is well and truely underway and by all accounts China are at the heart of it, so I guess if my site suddenly goes off the air or you can’t find that link back to this article that you setup yesterday… I’ve just become the next casualty and collateral damage in CyberWar 2.0!

Technorati Tags: China, CNN, CyberWar, Estonia, Hacker, Hacking, Internet, War, World Domination