Over the years, it’s been clear to all that the amount of cyber attacks coming from China was suspicious and most likely hinted at Bejing’s involvement. But until recently, the government has maintained that they do not, nor ever had supported hackers.
Well that has now changed. In a recent report issued by the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese military declare they have “specialized units devoted to wage war on computer networks.”
[revad1]
This is a big shift for China, essentially dumping any shred of plausible deniability.
An expert on the topic, Joe McReynolds, had this to say to the Daily Beast about how these units are structured:
- specialized military network warfare forces: “employed for carrying out network attack and defense”
- specialists in civilian organizations: ” have been authorized by the military to carry out network warfare operations.”
- external entities: “that can be organized and mobilized for network warfare operations”
It’s clear that the U.S. will have to ramp up its cyber security if it ever hopes to slow down the attacks from China.
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From Security Affairs:
Since quite some time that security experts sustain that China has one of the most advanced cyber army that is responsible for carried some of the highest profile cyber-attacks, but the Government of Beijing China always denied any involvement. In 2013, The Mandiant Intelligence Center released a shocking report that revealed an enterprise-scale computer espionage campaign dubbedAPT1. The evidences collected by the security experts link APT1 to China’s 2nd Bureau of thePeople’s Liberation Army (PLA) General Staff Department’s (GSD) 3rd Department (Military Cover Designator 61398), according to the experts the operations started in 2006 and targeted 141 victims across multiple industries.
