Report: China ready for cyber war

By Jake Widman
Saturday, 24 October 2009 07:25

Security

A report prepared for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission describes the ways the Chinese government is preparing to fight a cyber war, and concludes that China is probably already practicing some of the techniques against the U.S. and other countries.

The 12-member U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission is charged with keeping the U.S. Congress informed about security issues raised by the trade and economic relationships between the two countries.

The report (PDF), titled "Capability of the People’s Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation," was prepared for the commission by the Northrop Grumman Corporation.

It set out to examine the Chinese military's strategy for computer-based operations, possible U.S. targets, and evidence for any attacks that may have already been carried out.

The conclusions are based on information available outside China, from journals and articles published by the Chinese National Defense University and the Academy of Military Sciences, the Chinese military's official newspaper, various other Chinese media sources, and information gleaned from Chinese hacker websites.

According to the report, China has been modernizing its military for at least 10 years, guided by a doctrine known as "Local War Under Informationized Conditions."

This doctrine covers the military's "ongoing effort to develop a fully networked architecture capable of coordinating military operations on land, in air, at sea, in space and across the electromagnetic spectrum."

The operations include attacking an enemy's information systems as well as using various electronic tools for information gathering.

Aside from these general preparations, though, the report concluded that China has already been testing these techniques against U.S. targets.

For more on China's cyberwarfare activities, see Page 2.