Nearly every day we learn of additional examples of what the Chinese have termed as “Unrestricted Warfare.” This is the use of non-kinetic means of warfare to achieve geopolitical objectives. For the most part, these methodologies are means of economic warfare. Two PLA Colonels described causing a stock market crash, using a computer virus, and infiltrating networks as new concept weapons that could be used without provoking a shooting war.
Frighteningly, the authors also describe methods to manipulate currencies and other economic means. We have demonstrated quite clearly that their views were endorsed at the highest levels and as recently as April of this year when an official Communist Party publication described means to destroy the dollar and U.S. Treasury.
Today’s evidence is quite dramatic. According to London’s Telegraph based on McAfee reports:
China has been accused of mounting a five-year hacking operation that stole industrial and national secrets on an unprecedented scale, after an investigation by a leading internet group uncovered a huge international security breach.
More than 70 organisations, including the United Nations, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and defence contractors for both the UK and US were said to have been victims of the attack which was the work of a single “state actor”.
McAfee, the internet security group, stopped short of naming China as responsible, but independent security experts said the choice of targets, such as the Olympic Committee before the 2008 Olympic Games, suggested Beijing was the most likely culprit.
“Everything points to China,” said James Lewis, a cyber security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who was briefed on the report, “You can think of at least three other large programs attributed to China that look very similar. It’s a pattern of activity that we’ve seen before.”
The victims of the attacks were all tracked to a single computer server, McAfee said in its 14-page report which added that some networks, including that of the UN secretariat in Geneva, has been penetrated for two years by the malicious software.
“Even we were surprised by the enormous diversity of the victim organizations and were taken aback by the audacity of the perpetrators,” wrote Dmitri Alperovitch, McAfee’s vice president of threat research.
“Companies and government agencies are getting raped and pillaged every day. They are losing economic advantage and national secrets to unscrupulous competitors. This is the biggest transfer of wealth in terms of intellectual property in history,” he added.
This is a big story and provides further substantiation that we are in the midst of a global economic war. Sadly, policymakers have focused a small amount on the cyber threat but have ignored some other areas. One we are researching has to do with Chinese efforts to undermine our patent protections.
All posts Copyright (c) 2011 Kevin Freeman, All Rights Reserved
