Information Warfare: Cyber War Heats Up

Archives

December 7, 2007: Britain has called in outside consultants to develop methods to defend British government and commercial secrets from being stolen by increasingly aggressive Chinese Cyber War efforts. While China continues to insist it is innocent, MI5 (Britain's internal security organization) is convinced that China has been carrying out a massive, and largely well hidden, espionage campaign via the Internet. China has demanded proof, but MI5 refuses to provide details. That's because letting China know what MI5 has found, would result in those sources disappearing. Commercial Internet security firms are a better source of information on what's going on. China has apparently contracted out some of the work, to Internet criminal gangs in other countries (like Russia, which is becoming a safe haven for many major Cyber Crime operations.) But China also uses some well known, and usually effective, techniques to hide attacks coming from China itself. Apparently some stuff is so sensitive (particularly British military secrets), that the Chinese don't trust it to foreigners. But commercial secrets are another matter. China can use this stuff, and also sell or barter it on the black market (for commercial and technical data). China apparently believes that, as long as it keeps denying any culpability, no harm will come to them. But many military Cyber War officials in Europe and the United States are urging that counterattacks be made. That may already be happening, but no one is going to talk about it openly.

 

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   Contribute   Close