Chinese Assassin's Mace

Another surprisingly quite fact about the Chinese Military and Chinese Intelligence: They are knee deep in the U.S. critical infrastructure and electronic backbone. The threat may no longer be from outside, but what they have left inside. Think of it as a front company within the U.S. electronic system. There is sits, working fine...seemingly a normal bit of software until the Mother-ship calls upon it to begin destroying U.S. networks. You can almost hear the clock ticking...tic..tic..tic.

Published on Feb. 13, 2007

NORFOLK, Va. -- At the Naval Network Warfare Command here, U.S. cyber defenders track and investigate hundreds of suspicious events each day. But the predominant threat comes from Chinese hackers, who are constantly waging all-out warfare against Defense Department networks, Netwarcom officials said.

Attacks coming from China, probably with government support, far outstrip other attackers in terms of volume, proficiency and sophistication, said a senior Netwarcom official, who spoke to reporters on background Feb 12. The conflict has reached the level of a campaign-style, force-on-force engagement, he said.

The motives of Chinese hackers run the gamut, including technology theft, intelligence gathering, exfiltration, research on DOD operations and the creation of dormant presences in DOD networks for future action, the official said.

Chinese hackers were responsible for an intrusion in November 2006 that disabled the Naval War College’s network, forcing the college to shut down its e-mail and computer systems for several weeks, the official said. Forensic analysis showed that the Chinese were seeking information on war games in development at NWC, the official said.