U.S.
DIRECTLY BLAMES CHINA’S MILITARY FOR CYBERATTACKS
NY TIMES
Published: May
6, 2013
WASHINGTON — The
Obama administration on Monday explicitly accused China’s military of mounting
attacks on American government computer systems and defense contractors, saying
one motive could be to map “military capabilities that could be exploited
during a crisis.”
While some
recent estimates have more than 90 percent of cyberespionage in the United
States originating in China, the accusations relayed in the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on
Chinese military capabilities were remarkable in their directness. Until now
the administration avoided directly accusing both the Chinese government and
the People’s Liberation Army of using cyberweapons against the United States in
a deliberate, government-developed strategy to steal intellectual property and
gain strategic advantage.
“In 2012,
numerous computer systems around the world, including those owned by the U.S.
government, continued to be targeted for intrusions, some of which appear to be
attributable directly to the Chinese government and military,” the nearly
100-page report said.
The report,
released Monday, described China’s primary goal as stealing industrial
technology, but said many intrusions also seemed aimed at obtaining insights
into American policy makers’ thinking. It warned that the same information-gathering
could easily be used for “building a picture of U.S. network defense networks,
logistics, and related military capabilities that could be exploited during a
crisis.”
It was unclear
why the administration chose the Pentagon report to make assertions that it has
long declined to make at the White House. A White House official declined to
say at what level the report was cleared. A senior defense official said “this
was a thoroughly coordinated report,” but did not elaborate.
Missing from the
Pentagon report was any acknowledgment of the similar abilities being developed
in the United States, where billions of dollars are spent each year on
cyberdefense and constructing increasingly sophisticated cyberweapons. Recently
the director of the National Security Agency, Gen. Keith Alexander, who is also
commander of the military’s fast-growing Cyber Command, told Congress that he
was creating more than a dozen offensive cyberunits, designed to mount attacks,
when necessary, at foreign computer networks.
When the United
States mounted its cyberattacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities early inPresident Obama’s first term, Mr.
Obama expressed concern to aides that China and other states might use the
American operations to justify their own intrusions.
But the Pentagon
report describes something far more sophisticated: A China that has now leapt
into the first ranks of offensive cybertechnologies. It is investing in
electronic warfare capabilities in an effort to blind American satellites and
other space assets, and hopes to use electronic and traditional weapons systems
to gradually push the United States military presence into the mid-Pacific
nearly 2,000 miles from China’s coast.
The report
argues that China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, commissioned last
September, is the first of several carriers the country plans to deploy over
the next 15 years. It said the carrier would not reach “operational
effectiveness” for three or four years, but is already set to operate in the
East and South China Seas, the site of China’s territorial disputes with
several neighbors, including Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. The
report notes a new carrier base under construction in Yuchi.
The report also
detailed China’s progress in developing its stealth aircraft, first tested in
January 2011. Three months ago
the Obama administration would not officially confirm reports in The New York Times, based in large part on
a detailed study by the computer security firm Mandiant, that identified P.L.A.
Unit 61398 near Shanghai as the likely source of many of the biggest thefts of
data from American companies and some government institutions.
Until Monday,
the strongest critique of China came from Thomas E. Donilon, the president’s
national security adviser, who said in a speech at the Asia Society in
March that American companies were increasingly concerned about
“cyberintrusions emanating from China on an unprecedented scale,” and that “the
international community cannot tolerate such activity from any country.” He
stopped short of blaming the Chinese government for the espionage.
This article has been revised to reflect
the following correction:
Correction: May
7, 2013
An earlier
version of this article gave the incorrect number for the unit identified by a
New York Times article in February as the likely source of many of the biggest
thefts of data from American companies and some government institutions. It is
P.L.A. Unit 61398, not 21398. The name of China’s first aircraft carrier was
also misspelled. It is the Liaoning, not the Lianoning.
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