Cyberespionage: The Cyberguns of September
Posted on September 12, 2007
Filed Under Apparatchiks, China Business, China Internet, Cyberespionage, GFW, Malware |
China’s Vice Minister of Information Industry Lou Qinjian has written that China is a victim of cyberespionage, according to Reuters. Writing in the Chinese Cadres Tribune, Lou states:
“The Internet has become the main technological channel for external espionage activities against our core, vital departments,…”
“In recent years Party, government and military organs and national defense scientific research units have had many major cases of loss, theft and leakage of secrets, and the damage to national interests has been massive and shocking.”
Given the state of the internet in China, a minefield of hackers, phishing, spammers, viruses, worms, and trojans, it comes as no surprise that the government has IT security problems. Moreover, after all the recent cyberespionage stories (see here for my previous posts), it’s even less surprising that China would respond with similar accusations.
There is a notable difference between the reports in the international press and Vice Minister Lou’s article: he doesn’t bother to feed anonymous stories to the press. The Reuters article:
He did not address those allegations, but depicted his country as the target of a campaign of computer infiltration and subversion…
Lou said it was the United States and other developed powers that threatened China online.
They employed teams of writers to compile “harmful information” and exaggerated reports about bad news in China, he said, citing reports about mine disasters, medical problems and other volatile social issues.
“As soon as a major social situation occurs, Internet opinion makes waves and it becomes extremely easy for street politics to break out, directly threatening social stability,” he wrote, apparently referring to public protests.
He conflates cyberespionage with attacks on the social stability of China. A very, very serious accusation, indeed. And he specifically mentions the United States. Relations between the two powers have been wary at best in recent years and the accusations and counter accusations will certainly not help. There may even be consequences for foreign investment in China:
China’s Ministry of Information Industry is one of several agencies, including the Ministry of Public Security and party propaganda department, that seek to control the country’s Internet.
Lou urged a more unified approach, with a “state information security administration office” and a new agency to scrutinize the computer security implications of foreign business moves.
The new screening agency would “resolve the Internet and information security issues of major foreign investments, major mergers and acquisitions, major technology product and service projects and major international science and technology cooperation,” Lou wrote.
This could be read as a threat to international technology firms, holding them responsible for actions their government may or may not have been involved in. The technology sector is one of the more open areas of the Chinese economy, to everyone’s benefit. It would be unfortunate to see it become politicized.
I suppose it was unavoidable that all the cyberespionage stories would lead to this: pounds of red meat for the dogs of cyberwar on both sides. It reminds me of a book I read many years ago, The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. She wrote that the first World War was inevitable. All of Europe expected it, planned for it, and embraced the first excuse to start it.
The first World War wasn’t triggered by a skirmish between armies, but by a Serb nationalist with a pistol. The obvious analogy is a hacker with a virus.
I don’t expect a virtual Somme or a Verdun online. I do expect this story to grow: the language is getting more bitter, the accusations more pointed, and the consequences more significant. An election year in the United States is coming up and both the Democrats and the Republicans each have their own China phobias. Somewhere, sometime, this will come up again, further damaging relations.
I just hope we don’t have to go through a trade war to realize how stupid it all is.
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