US Congress: China’s cyberwarfare is becoming a serious problem for the United States

• By Grant Brunner on November 7, 2012 at 10:54 am

A draft report from the US Congress shows that Chinese cyberwarfare is a growing issue that leaves the United States vulnerable in a very serious way. Not only must the US face the fact that it is beholden to Chinese manufacturing and the growing might of Chinese consumers, but it must now also admit that its time as the world’s only cyber superpower may be drawing to an end.

The draft report, which was obtained by Bloomberg, contains some very interesting information. The key quote in the report is “Chinese penetrations of defense systems threaten the U.S. military’s readiness and ability to operate.” A Northrop Grumman report from March has a similar conclusion about the ability of China to disrupt the US military if there was a conflict over Taiwan. This growing evidence is both scary and incredibly fascinating.

The vast majority of the attacks over the last year have been “straightforward” zero-day exploits. The sheer amount of man power available to the Chinese appears to be the issue at hand. Even if most of the attempts at infiltrating security networks fail, the occasional breakthrough is enough to potentially severely compromise the US. While most of the detected attacks are aimed at gathering information (espionage), this is a clear indication that China cannot be ignored. While its total number of security experts is small, the report indicates that the Chinese military’s leadership is developing ways to work smarter and harder. Think how powerful these “cyber militias” will be when they have both raw numbers and expertise on their side.

This needs to serve as a wake-up call, not just to the US, but for every country with significant national security infrastructure. The Chinese military is continuing to enhance its cyberwarfare branch, and anyone with political and economic relations with China could be in the crosshair. Not only do US security systems need to be reinforced, but our counterintelligence needs better funding and training. We need to take China’s willingness to dedicate massive amounts of manpower to espionage into account when we’re budgeting our defense spending.

If you’re not worried by this news, you should be. Last year’s annual report revealed that hackers, likely Chinese, disrupted two different US satellites a total of four times at the end of the last decade. This isn’t a potential problem; it’s a problem right this very moment, and it’s only going to get worse as China grows in power and resources. Retaliating with trade sanctions and punishing corporations that enable Chinese espionage are half-way decent first steps, but our best bet is to fight fire with fire. We need to staff up our cyberwarfare capabilities with experts in counterintelligence and network security. If the US has any hope of competing with China’s forces, it’s by outsmarting them while we still can.

Tim Cook, at the recent iPad Mini announcement, explained that Apple’s strategy in the rapidly expanding tablet market is to keep its foot on the gas. This is a good metaphor for what the US and other nations in similar situations need to do: Pour a ton of resources into this problem right now and don’t stop any time soon. Maybe, just maybe, China’s growing capabilities can be neutralized if we take the threat to heart.