I saw this news a few days ago but was pondering if there will come a day where cyber incursion into the wrong sensitive site be translated to a 1st strike and required a military response.
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- The Chinese government called allegations that its military hacked the Pentagon's computer network over the summer "groundless", the state-run Xinhua news agency reported late Tuesday. "The Chinese government has always opposed any Internet-wrecking crime, including hacking, and cracked down on it according to the law," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters. Officially, the United States has not accused Beijing of cracking into the military e-mail system that serves Defense Secretary Robert Gates and hundreds of other department employees. But, behind the scenes, a senior Bush administration official told CNN that China is the No. 1 suspect in the June hacking incident. On Monday, the Financial Times of London also reported that Washington believed China was responsible. "Some people are making wild accusations against China and wantonly saying the Chinese military attacked the Pentagon's computer network," Jiang said. "These are totally groundless and also reflect a Cold War mentality." She called hacking an international problem and said that China has also been attacked. "China would like to work with other countries to take measures to crack down on Web crime," according to Jiang. In Australia ahead of the APEC summit, reporters asked President Bush on Wednesday if he would bring up the issue of hackers with Chinese President Hu Jintao when the two leaders meet Thursday. "I'm very aware that a lot of our systems are vulnerable to cyber attack from a variety of places," Bush said at a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
"In terms of whether or not I'll bring this up to countries that we suspect may -- from which there may have been an attack, I may." The cyber attack led the Pentagon to shut down its unclassified e-mail for nearly three weeks. U.S. government sources said the unclassified e-mail system is not connected to other e-mail networks that contain sensitive military secrets. Pentagon officials said none of their operations were disrupted. At the time of the attack, Gates never mentioned China. "The reality is that the Defense Department is constantly under attack," he said. "Elements of the OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] unclassified e-mail system were taken off-line ... due to a detected penetration."
The Pentagon does suspect the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) of operating secret cells of computer hackers, although not officially pointing a finger at Beijing in this instance. In its annual report on the Chinese military earlier this year, the Defense Department confirmed the likely existence of such units: "The PLA has established information warfare units to develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems and networks."
On Wednesday, The Guardian newspaper in London reported that Chinese hackers launched online assaults against the network at Britain's Parliament and the Foreign Office, according to the Associated Press. AP further reports that on the eve of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to Beijing last week, the weekly Der Spiegel said computers at the Chancellery and three ministries had been infected with so-called Trojans, or spy programs
2nd article.
By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and Richard McGregor in Beijing
Published: September 3 2007 19:00 | Last updated: September 3 2007 20:53
The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in June in the most successful cyber attack on the US defence department, say American ¬officials.
The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defence secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack.
Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the PeopleÂ’s Liberation Army.
One senior US official said the Pentagon had pinpointed the exact origins of the attack. Another person familiar with the event said there was a “very high level of confidence...trending towards total certainty” that the PLA was responsible. The defence ministry in Beijing declined to comment on Monday.
Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, raised reports of Chinese infiltration of German government computers with Wen Jiabao, China’s premier, in a visit to Beijing, after which the Chinese foreign ministry said the government opposed and forbade “any criminal acts undermining computer systems, including hacking”.
“We have explicit laws and regulations in this regard,” said Jiang Yu, from the ministry. “Hacking is a global issue and China is frequently a victim.”
George W. Bush, US president, is due to meet Hu Jintao, ChinaÂ’s president, on Thursday in Australia prior to the Apec summit.
The PLA regularly probes US military networks – and the Pentagon is widely assumed to scan Chinese networks – but US officials said the penetration in June raised concerns to a new level because of fears that China had shown it could disrupt systems at critical times.
“The PLA has demonstrated the ability to conduct attacks that disable our system...and the ability in a conflict situation to re-enter and disrupt on a very large scale,” said a former official, who said the PLA had penetrated the networks of US defence companies and think-tanks.
Hackers from numerous locations in China spent several months probing the Pentagon system before overcoming its defences, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Pentagon took down the network for more than a week while the attacks continued, and is to conduct a comprehensive diagnosis. “These are multiple wake-up calls stirring us to levels of more aggressive vigilance,” said Richard Lawless, the Pentagon’s top Asia official at the time of the attacks.
The Pentagon is still investigating how much data was downloaded, but one person with knowledge of the attack said most of the information was probably “unclassified”. He said the event had forced officials to reconsider the kind of information they send over unsecured e-mail systems.
John Hamre, a Clinton-era deputy defence secretary involved with cyber security, said that while he had no knowledge of the June attack, criminal groups sometimes masked cyber attacks to make it appear they came from government computers in a particular country.
The National Security Council said the White House had created a team of experts to consider whether the administration needed to restrict the use of BlackBerries because of concerns about cyber espionage
