China has developed cyber warfare forces and the Air Force has created a cyberspace command to provide both defensive and offensive computer network weapons, a senior Air Force general said last week.
Asked if China was planning a cyber “Pearl Harbor” surprise attack, Maj. Gen. William Lord, the cyber forces commander, said numerous Chinese-origin probes may be “reconnaissance” intrusions to determine if cyber warfare capabilities are detected as part of preparation for some future attack. “So when the lights go out, when the traffic lights don’t work, when the data in the stock exchange has been manipulated, when the cell phones don’t work, when the escalators in FAO Schwartz don’t work, imagine what happens within the United States. Imagine that now laid over a command and control ability of any force,” he said at a conference of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Air Force Col. Jeffrey Kendall, who appeared with Lord, said China has been among the most active players in the cyberwarfare arena. Chinese hackers took down a White House website in 2001 and in June 2007, the Chinese military was behind an attack on the secretary of defense’s unclassified email systems. And in August 2007, 28 defense contractors were targeted by Chinese hackers.
Unlike most of the perceived threats we face, I think this one is valid.
I am not even an American citizen and I am worried about that. The Chinese play dirty or are getting ready to play dirty and I don’t like it. Leave my Internet alone!
Reminds me of some counterfeit CISCO routers that were sold to the US (either to a government agency or to a government contractor). The routers were shipped with built-in malicious software.
We are going to hear about this more and more!
“Unlike most of the perceived threats we face, I think this one is valid.”
Other than the idiot Bush, I don’t think you any idea of what the “perceived threats” are. Just talk to some military officers. Getting RID of Saddam was a perceived threat to the U.S.
Escalators are attached to the internet? I think someone has been watching Terminator 3 too many times. (noting the part where the lady terminator connects to the internet to remotely control cars)
“Unlike most of the perceived threats we face, I think this one is valid.”
What makes a threat valid? If they could do it, why would they?
In other words, cyber threats more than just normal espionage and security that need to be defended against “generically”==a cyber threat only comes with a war?
Is war with China a realistic threat? I really doubt this will ever happen. They already have all the booty of the winning side==they are taking our money and wealth and building their own economy with it. If they blow us up, that support goes away.
War–yes, keep the sheeple grazing on the webitudes, sound asleep.
#3 – Let’s see now, I was in a meeting over two years and I quipped about having one of the pop (soda) machines attached to the network being a smart ass and one of the other guys said they already had them.
I can see an escalator being attached.
Doesn’t America have a surplus of bored hackers bothering scientology and breaking into facebook? Why not share some information and put them to work?
I have a question. Would a virtual attack on our banking and communication infrastructure be treated like a real “Pearl Harbor” style attack, or be treated as a massive criminal act? Destroying our economy would be equivalent to stealing Trillions of dollars.
#7 – Would dropping napalm on a major US city be treated as arson? Destroying an entire city would be equivalent to burning thousands of buildings…
For once I agree with bobbo. It is more FUD by the military industrial complex to keep spending our money on what they perceive as threats but which are not realistic.
#9 – People (especially dictators) aren’t necessarily logical by our standards. bobbo’s question, “What makes a threat valid? If they could do it, why would they?” might not be a valid one.
“When are you going to stop killing people?” asked the impertinent Lady Astor. “When it is no longer necessary,” answered Comrade Stalin.
The question of threats is interesting… None of these things are real threats to me or anyone I know. They are real threats to the military industrial complex economy, built to thrive on fear and death, which collapses in times of peace.
We would be lucky if these Air Force “hackers” can find their ass with both hands.
The most surprising thing is that they made it public. If you’re going to waste tax dollars fighting it, publish it so we can all have the data. I’m tired of seeing the ‘probes’ in my log files too. I’d love to be able to iptables -A INPUT -s all.of.china.and.some.of.the.rest.of.asia -j DROP
and be done with it.
The network is as vital as the weapon. All the DARPA research dough that was spent on university research is being redirected. University systems are full of holes.
Sheeeit, you mean they’re just getting ’round to this now? I just took it for granted we had these infrastructures in place. Talk about tunnel vision, what the hell, you’d think with the money they’re spending they’d be able to cover all the bases of national security. Playing catch-up to the chinese, how humiliating. We got much better hackers than the chinese, they ought to give these guys the big paycheck and set them on the chinese firewalls. Give the chinese access to the world without filters show them who rulez.
I’ve got reams and reams of logs showing people at different IP addresses pecking away at my router day and night. Guess where WHOIS says many of them come from? And I’m just a little DSL home user.