Cyber Attacks: Beijing Denies the Role of Its Army

The Chinese army is encouraging hundreds of hackers to sabotage the Internet sites of businesses, newspapers, and managers of the American infrastructure? This is the theory that the consulting firm Mandiant advocated in a report that spilled a lot of ink. According to the firm, a group called Advanced Persistent Threat is in fact an offshoot of the People’s Liberation Army. The signatures from the cyber attacks launched these last few months against American websites were traced back to a 12-story building in the outskirts of Shanghai. The building is protected by a sign reading, “restricted military zone, no photography.”

Ill-received accusations

On the Chinese side, these accusations have been received coldly. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was counter-attacking. Its spokesman, Hong Lei, protested these “unfounded accusations,” adding that China itself was the target of attacks originating from the United States. The Ministry of Defense judged these attacks “inappropriate and unprofessional.” Yesterday, the same ministry drove home the point by judging that the report by the firm Mandiant “is only relying on IP addresses to conclude that the attacks originated from China.” Yet, it continues, “Everyone knows that the use of usurped IP addresses to carry out attacks on the Internet takes place almost every day.” In the media, the tone is similar. The Global Times, a powerful daily newspaper known for its nationalism, sees in this campaign a desire to sully the image of China. After all, it cites Zhang Shuhua, the director of the Information Institute. These American accusations are mostly aimed at exaggerating the menace in order for the relevant American departments to receive appropriate budget funding.

Barack Obama, in his State of the Union address last week, insisted on the necessity of protecting the country against ever increasing IT threats: “Our enemies are also seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions, our air traffic control systems .” That same day, the president signed a decree which encourages businesses to protect themselves and allows them to access secret data. However, this text does not have as much force as a law. Thus the president called on Congress, which failed in this regard last year, to adopt an appropriate legislation.

As one expert on the subject of China notes, “The majority of studies that refer to this subject are of American origin and we do not know anything about what motivated the publication.” It is difficult to imagine that Washington is completely devoid of ulterior motives on the matter. For all that though, certain facts are proven. On one hand, China has taken an effort to computerize its army and systematically includes a cybernetic component in the scenarios of its military exercises. On the other hand, for a number of years Beijing has pursued a strategy in which it seeks to pool the civil and military resources for the national effort of research and development. “It is therefore not stupid to think that the abilities of the Chinese army could be used for this genre of operations,” continued the same specialist.