Why Did the US Attack China’s Earthquake Monitoring Center?

This morning, I noticed an odd piece of news: Wuhan’s Public Security Bureau issued a report stating there was a Trojan Horse virus on some of the equipment at the Wuhan Municipal Emergency Management Bureau’s earthquake monitoring center.

It was preliminarily determined that the culprits were overseas hackers with a government background. Many others must also have been puzzled. Isn’t earthquake data public? Why would foreign hackers target an earthquake monitoring center? Where were they from?

I contacted the bureau, which said that the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center and 360 Security Technology Inc. conducted a virus origin analysis and determined the hackers were from the U.S. The U.S. is at it again, but why on earth would the U.S. target China’s earthquake monitoring center?

With this question in mind, I spoke with a professional. He said that because underground structures change wave velocity, they can be discovered by seismic monitoring centers. For example, it can be deduced whether there is a military base or a command post underground. He provided an explanation: The amalgamation of sounds heard on a city stroll after dinner is noise, but with a machine, a simple analysis of this noise can parse much information — the sound of wind, the sound of cars. What was it the U.S. wants to analyze?

I began searching for clues by examining U.S. intelligence agencies. Many are familiar with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, but these agencies are just the tip of the iceberg. Currently, the U.S. has 18 intelligence agencies, which together form a large intelligence network. Among these, it is the CIA and the NSA that are the recidivist hackers. Last year, the NSA attacked China’s Northwestern Polytechnical University, and over two months ago, I published an article detailing how the CIA carries out sabotage online. The recent cyberattack is likely to be by one of these two agencies. Once these hacking agencies obtain the data, who performs the analysis?

After sorting through the functions of the 18 intelligence agencies, I locked onto one agency: the Defense Intelligence Agency. We know the secretive DIA collects foreign military intelligence for the Pentagon, but other information about the DIA, such as the number of employees and budget, is classified. The most recent public news on the DIA was that, at the end of the year, it established the China Task Force, assembling a team of analysts and experts focused exclusively on China. Additionally, the DIA will regularly publish the China Military Power report, significantly aiding U.S. military policy formulation. There is not much more available information on the DIA. However, after scrutinizing its developmental history and organizational structure, we discovered that the DIA has another function: military geological research.

Geology plays a strong role in the military. The Gulf War is known for completely changing the landscape of modern warfare with technology. With vast amounts of high-tech weapons, the U.S. had overwhelming force on the battlefield. However, at the time, focus was on U.S. air supremacy, and few paid attention to the military’s geological intelligence. Before launching the war, the U.S. military obtained and analyzed Iraqi geological data and determined where the Iraqi military command center was hidden 100 feet underground. To strike precisely, geological information was needed, so the military conducted an analysis of the rock formations around the center. At the outset of the war, the U.S. military destroyed the Iraqi army’s command structure by launching a ground-penetrating bomb guided by a laser with a chip containing geological data. With this in mind, isn’t the cyberattack on the Wuhan Earthquake Monitoring Center frightening?

The boundaries between civilian and military facilities are increasingly blurred, and precision strikes are increasingly important. In order to obtain this information, U.S. intelligence agencies have ramped up cyberattacks and theft. At present, the U.S. has a complete set of cyberattack capabilities and is able to attack global targets at will. According to reports, the U.S. has used its geological information virtually to practice conducting precise strikes on more than 10,000 key underground targets around the world. As China advances in its geology research, data leaks from earthquake monitoring centers will carry a higher risk.

The professionals said that the monitoring center will also simultaneously monitor information such as groundwater levels and soil. I noticed that a few years ago, the DIA began to study the impact of soil on military operations. The research has been subdivided into the impact of soil moisture and temperature on moving military vehicles. Because the U.S. national security strategy defines China as a “strategic competitor,” the primary task of U.S. intelligence agencies has adjusted to assisting the U.S. in competition with China.

On the wall of the DIA headquarters there is a poster encouraging employees to pay attention to the opinions, comments and jokes of ordinary people. This is a reminder that even seemingly insignificant, small data can contain great value, and this is now the DIA’s approach to China’s data. To advance its plans against China, the U.S. aims to obtain information through illegal means such as cyberattacks.

U.S. intelligence agencies’ cyberattack weapons have penetrated various industries: the CIA can specifically target smart TVs, and more than a thousand hacking systems manufactured by the CIA cover the vast majority of electronic device systems currently on the market; the NSA’s Office of Tailored Access Operations researches how to remotely hack into cars’ computer systems for targeted assassination; and the attack on the earthquake monitoring center shows that the U.S. has progressed to routine attacks and on everyday targets.

For the average person, cyberattacks seem remote, but when the U.S. develops its cyberattack weapons, it consciously integrates with products used daily by normal people who are affected by the attacks. In the face of such enemies, we must rely not solely on improving military defense capabilities, but also develop China’s Skynet firewall through interdisciplinary collaboration.