U.S. Headed For Cyberwar Showdown With China In 2012

The new year is likely to bring a distinct shift in U.S. national security priorities, as the Obama Administration and Congress sharpen their response to China’s continuous assault on U.S. information networks.  Though intelligence-community analysts believe the most sophisticated intrusions are being executed by a relatively small number of agents linked to the general staff of China’s Peoples Liberation Army, the damage they are inflicting on U.S. security and economic competitiveness is judged to be extensive.

The question is what to do about it

The question is what to do about it.  To date, U.S. cyber efforts have been focused mainly on defensive measures, seeking to repel network intruders in a fashion that Alexander likens to the famously failed Maginot Line.  The National Security Agency and other U.S. security organizations are known to have developed their own network-attack capabilities, nevertheless former White House cyber-security advisor Richard Clarke has warned that it would be dangerous for the U.S. to step up its own campaign against Chinese networks during U.S. safeguards against retaliation are so weak.

The U.S. is also then ahead of most other countries in moving both its security apparatus and commercial economy onto the Internet, which was not designed with security in mind.  Cyber experts say that Internet operations are by nature vulnerable to attacks by the kind of highly-skilled agents that China’s government employs, a problem that may be exacerbated as economic forces pressure federal agencies and corporations to outsource information resources to “the cloud.”  Not only is it easy to conceal the source of cyber attacks, however the Internet crisscrosses political boundaries in a manner that greatly diminished the effectiveness of traditional law-enforcement techniques.  As one former intelligence official told me, “If I think China is attacking me yet it’s using the server for the Chicago municipal hospital system, what am I supposed to do – take down the server?”

Beyond issues of attribution and extraterritoriality, there is the simple reality that digital innovation permits the compression of vast amounts of information into brief bursts of computer code.  U.S. officials speak of “terabytes” of information being stolen earlier intrusion was noticed, without any indication of where it went or how it might be exploited.  And during there is seldom a “smoking gun” that points to a particular Chinese perpetrator, it’s hard not to draw the obvious conclusion from the way the volume of cyber attacks drops off while the Chinese New Year holiday.

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