China Aims To Narrow Cyberwarfare Gap With US (zdnet.com) 55
According to the Department of Defense, China is looking to narrow the gap with the U.S. in terms of cyberwarfare capabilities. "The Pentagon report said that in recent years the Chinese army has emphasized the importance of cyberspace for national security because of the country's increasing reliance on its digital economy," reports ZDNet. "It said Chinese military strategists see cyber operations as a low-cost deterrent that can demonstrate capabilities and challenge an adversary." From the report: The DoD's annual report to congress (PDF) points to a Chinese international cyberspace cooperation strategy in March 2017, which called for the expedited development of a military "cyber force" as an important aspect of the country's defense strategy. However, the U.S. report said that China also believes its cyber capabilities and personnel lag behind those of the U.S. and that China "is working to improve training and bolster domestic innovation to overcome these perceived deficiencies and advance cyberspace operations."
The report lists "cyber activities" directed against the DoD by China and said: "Computer systems around the world, including those owned by the U.S. government, continued to be targeted by China-based intrusions through 2017." It said these intrusions focused on accessing networks and extracting information, and said China uses its cyber capabilities to support intelligence collection against U.S. diplomatic, economic, academic, and defense sectors.
The report lists "cyber activities" directed against the DoD by China and said: "Computer systems around the world, including those owned by the U.S. government, continued to be targeted by China-based intrusions through 2017." It said these intrusions focused on accessing networks and extracting information, and said China uses its cyber capabilities to support intelligence collection against U.S. diplomatic, economic, academic, and defense sectors.
LOL (Score:1)
Everyone is KILLING the US in cyber everywhere. Esp. China and Russia.
Re: LOL (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah there is no gap to be narrowed. China has infiltrated most major American companies and I have been part of dealing with that for one of the biggest. APT 27? Yeah, I know them.. there are more.
Re: (Score:1)
Well, the best answer is: Does the company have any high-level Chinese nationals? If the answer is yes, then it's highly likely that any data that person has access to has been exfiltrated to China.
Re: (Score:1)
I have only two words for you: La Raza
Bloody North Korea is trying to narrow that gap (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
IIRC, the divisions between Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia would mean that China, Russia, and North Korea are all Eastasia
Build A Firewall! (Score:2, Funny)
And make the Chinese pay for it!
Non-story (Score:2)
Every nation's military targets every other nation in every way, including the cyberinfodiginet. The only news would be if somebody had elected to forego such hijinks. Unlikely.
Sorry (Score:1)
You can't keep up with our own cyber team at destroying the US. Hands down we have the best at taking ourselves down.
Ambient Authority (Score:3)
Stop using systems that are based on ambient authority to get work done, and this problem goes away... we figured this out in the 1970s, but seem to have forgotten that lesson.
It is possible to build systems that are much, much harder to hack, thus making herd immunity high enough that worms and virii won't spread, no matter how clever.
10 more years until people wake up enough to take action.
Re: (Score:1)
President Kelly: Mr. President, we have an Ambient Authority Problem?
el Presidente Tweetie: No shit Sherlock, I need to take it every night just to keep my fingers off my phone.
PK: ??? Errmmmm....not Ambien, Ambient.
ePT: Damn, what did they have to change the name for? I'm confused enough as it is. Why is this a problem?
PK: Some guy on Slashdot has pointed it out as a problem.
ePT: What does it mean, man?
PK: No sure, shall I bring him in for questioning?
ePT: Sure, he'll confirm what I already know. I'm very
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
So we can build the situation/war room every President from here on out is going to want anyway with just a few walls of screens and a comfy chair with cup holders and a big red "NUKE" button on an old WICO trackball?
Re: (Score:1)
Make it all fake so they can't do any real damage.
Re: (Score:1)
Yep. Just give him a 48 screen version of missile command on a real map background, tied to nothing.
Re: (Score:1)
For once his "fake news" complaints will be legitimate.
Treaties BAD no Profit (Score:3)
All this shit is down to US contractors, treaties bad, not profit for doing worthless shit. No attempt to prevent this issue, just insane greed driven demands by US tech corporations to accelerate this to internet collapse and that is where it is going, billions wasted to eventually collapse digital communications because more fucking profit for the war industrial complex contractors. The most insane faction, in the factionalised US system of corporate controlled government governance, each group of corporations looking to suck as much out of the treasury as possible whilst of course paying zero taxes.
China is already leading on defense (Score:4, Interesting)
The story is not very well written. Should I cite the best book I've read on the topic? I bet no one cares within the context of today's Slashdot.
Anyway, the story is obviously about offensive capabilities, where the Chinese have lagged behind. Amusingly enough, a lot of that is because of the language problems, mostly the human languages, but also the computer languages, especially as related to the inaccessible source code. Right now it seems clear that the leaders in offense for cyber-war are the Russians.
On the defensive side, the Chinese are probably the leaders. They have the Great Firewall of China as a fairly serious line of defense and they think (and have always thought) in terms of partitioning and isolating and controlling their networks. Not just the computers, but the human networks, too. However it is probably more important that their society is less dependent upon computers and therefore less vulnerable to cyber-warfare attacks.
America is supposed to be one of the leaders in offensive capabilities, but the weaknesses on the defensive side are overwhelming. Almost no defenses and high vulnerability. Only tiny traces of defensive thinking.
Re: (Score:2)
While I appreciate your bitterness towards Slashdot Millennial Edition (tm) some of us are interested. What is the book, please?
Re: (Score:2)
You surprised me. The one in my mind at that time was Cyber War by Richard Clarke. It's a bit older than I thought it was. Reviewing my records, I see Our Final Invention by James Barrat may include some relevant material and Wired for War by Peter Singer, which had more of a hardware focus. I didn't notice any others that I would recommend on this topic, though The Shallows by Nicholas Carr caught my eye, and I always feel that one is worthy of being recommended.
Re: (Score:1)
You missed the granddaddy that turned us on to the concept of cyber war to begin with: The Cookoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll.
Your list of course has more recent technology (the teenagers hired by the KGB were using a Commodore 64 with a 1200 baud modem after all...ancient history now) but the primary defense remains the same (limit bandwidth of attack profile and log everything).
Re: (Score:2)
Actually I read Stoll's book, and fairly recently, too. It fell off of the second search because the publication date was so old. The version I read was published in 1990.
I also considered including several books about international spying, especially histories related to the KGB in Russia and the CIA in America, but I ultimately decided against the ones I noticed for similar reasons. Adversarial spy-craft, yes, but computers were not much involved in the old days. However, the NSA has always been deep into
Re: (Score:1)
I think the last time I read it was right before he came to talk at my college in 1991, when he was on the initial book tour.
I think he only succeeded against the KGB because he is terminally ADHD and OCD. Was chomping down Hershey's bars on stage and throwing his slides around the room.
But sometimes, that's what you need in a hacker.
Need international law - soon (Score:3)
Cyber warfare has the potential be extremely destructive - collapsing economies, destroying means of production, destroying critical information, etc - and that is without the possibility of direct damage. I don't see cyber warfare as necessarily a step down in damage potential from conventional weapons, it may be a step up. Meanwhile various nations seem to feel free to launch cyber attacks, on other countries nuclear facilities, election systems and critical infrastructure, without any sort of declaration of war. Cyber weapons seem completely ungoverned by international rules of war.
Its a type of conflict that could escalate very quickly, and which could cause so much damage to a country that a conventional or possibly even nuclear reprisal might seem warranted.
"Rules of war" may seem pointless, but they have at least helped over the last century. There has been limited use of gas, at least by the major powers, no use of nuclear after WWII, no large scale bio weapons attacks etc . They don't prevent violations, but they help clarify what sort of responses might be expected after various types of cyber attacks
Re: (Score:2)
There is a difference between the lights going out and being blown to bits. So not the same thing.
The USA legitimized cyber war with Stutnex.
Now, when those atomic drones get taken over by an enemy, things get more interesting...
Re: (Score:2)
Easy (Score:1)
The PRC and so the PLA has had an easy time of it since they make all of the electronics the US market consumes they have unprecedented opportunity to insert back doors in everything.
It's about time. (Score:2)
Fighting our own shadows again. (Score:1)
It means STOP INTERFERING WITH CRYPTOLOGIC DATA!
NO more back doors!!